Ruben Vardanyan

RVVZ Foundation

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Ruben Vardanyan is an Armenian-Russian impact investor and social entrepreneur. He serves on the advisory boards of the IFC (World Bank Group) and business schools in Japan and Brazil. He is also a board member at Joule Unlimited (an American green energy startup), Ameriabank (a major Armenian bank), KAMAZ (Eastern Europe’s largest truck producer) amongst a host of other companies, NGOs, public and professional organizations. A prominent financier, Ruben owns a stake in a joint venture with the Otto family in a commercial realty management business in Russia. He is known both for his financial projects (Troika Dialog investment house) as well as his deep reaching philanthropic programs, such as the first UWC college in Eastern Europe (Dilijan, Armenia) and the Tatev Revival Project, part of which includes the construction of the world’s longest cableway leading to the ancient monastery. Together with his partners, he has invested about $500M in projects in Armenia, developing a commercial approach that relies on involving blended financing to find solutions to social problems. He has also raised over $500M to finance the first private business school in Russia – a pioneering institution both in terms of scale and in its collaborative nature. In 2015, Ruben co-founded another global project, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors.