She is a self-made billionaire. She founded her ecommerce company while on maternity leave. Her net worth is about USD 7.4 billion.
Tatyana Bakalchuk is the richest woman in Russia and one of the only two female billionaires in Russia.
In 2004, Tatyana Bakalchuk spent USD 700 to create a website for Wildberries, an e-commerce business she started out of her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave. It is an ecommerce retailer, similar to Amazon.
In 2023, the revenues of Wildberries exceeded USD 6 billion.
According to Business Insider, Bakalchuk is immensely wealthy but maintains a modest lifestyle and low profile. She still lives in a rented home.
Bakalchuk was born in the Moscow Oblast region in 1975 and studied at the Kolomna State Pedagogical Institute, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She was 28 when she started Wildberries.
She and her husband, IT entrepreneur Vladislav Bakalchuk, have seven children.
She founded the e-commerce retailer Wildberries in 2004 while on maternity leave from her job as an English teacher.
Wildberries started as a small venture reselling clothes from Otto, a German retail company.
Bakalchuk told Bloomberg in 2018 that she used to make deliveries herself in the company’s early days.
“At first, I did everything myself, collecting the goods and taking them to customers on the other side of Moscow by subway or bus,” she said.
As the business grew, Bakalchuk began hiring delivery workers and renting space to store more inventory.
Russian bodybuilder Sergei Anufriev invested in Wildberries in 2006, Bloomberg reported. Bakalchuk owns 99% of the company, and her husband owns 1%.
Wildberries stocks items from over 60,000 brands, selling a range of products including clothes, electronics, and housewares, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
The retailer launched in Europe in 2021, expanding into Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, The Moscow Times reported.
Some ecommerce companies in Central Asia have affiliate relationship with Wildberries.
Wildberries processes roughly seven million orders per day.
© Forbes
Wildberries acquired Standard-Credit Bank in 2020. The bank was renamed Wildberries Bank.
Wildberries commands about one-third of the total ecommerce market in Russia.
The maiden name of Tatyana Bakalchuk was Kim. She belongs Koryo-saram, who are ethnic Koreans of the former Soviet Union, descended from Koreans that were living in the Russian Far East.
In a 2018 interview with AFP, Bakalchuk described herself as “introverted.”
Unlike other billionaires who live in sprawling mansions, Bakalchuk rents instead of owning a home, Bloomberg reported.
Bakalchuk’s latest venture will involve building an alternative payment platform to help bolster Russia’s economy amid international sanctions.
In June, Bloomberg reported that Bakalchuk will work with advertising operator Russ Group on developing a new digital trading platform as an alternative to SWIFT. The project will be overseen by Maxim Oreshkin, Russia’s former minister of economic development. /// nCa, 5 July 2024