Tatyana Kim: Russia’s online retail queen

23:25Soon they expanded beyond clothes and they surpassed something called Ozon, which is one of the first Russian online retailers, and then started becoming described as Russia's Amazon in terms of its popularity. But by the end of 2014 into 2015, another financial crisis came along. The Russian ruble fell very sharply. And this was due to the combination of Western sanctions, which were imposed after Russia's annexation of Crimea. Remember that? And that sort of steep decline in oil prices. What happened in Russia, you had a very sharp recession after that. Russian living standards dropped very substantially.

24:00So people were feeling much less well off. You'd think less inclined to spend money, but it wasn't quite like that for Wildberries. No, during the 2014 crisis, Wildberries pivoted to a marketplace model. So they let third party sellers list their own goods on the website, which is actually something that ASOS for a time did. And Amazon has its marketplace as well now. Exactly. Most Russian e-commerce firms still sold things directly. and for Wildberries this actually turned out to be a good idea because online sales generally rose in Russia during the financial crisis. And it's interesting this bit about expanding during a financial downturn because Wildberries was growing at this moment of Russian economic crisis and Tatiana said the success was down to a slightly expanded version of something called the lipstick effect and this is something that is an economic term believe it or not which is that customers spend money on small, indulgent, pleasure-providing items.

24:55They might hold off on big-ticket items, but little pleasures to make themselves feel better during hard times. And if you can get that bit right, you're onto a winner. Yeah, you're not going to get people splashing out on a new kitchen or a new car. If you get enough of them to buy a lipstick, a nice pair of earrings, you're doing well for yourself. A pair of sunglasses, a nice belt, that kind of stuff. Exactly. So Kim explained that Wildberries' clientele started out predominantly female. It remained that way over the years. And she said these women wanted to, quote, afford some little joys in life.

25:27And Wildberries offered just that. By the end of 2016, it ranked first in online sales in all of Russia. But Wildberries' huge growth during this period masked some mounting problems in its supply chain. Just a year later, they were hit with over 20 lawsuits from suppliers. Now, these suppliers claimed they were being routinely underpaid. They were pressured into deep discounts. They faced blocked or delayed shipments if they didn't comply. Wildberries won all of these lawsuits, but because of the closed nature, the slightly opaque nature of the company, these cases fuelled rumours that the company had financial problems.

26:00So suppliers became wary. Whenever a company starts having rouse with its suppliers, sometimes that can mean financial distress. The telltale sign, if you want to see if a company might go bust sometimes, is the suppliers will start saying they're lengthening my payment terms from 60 to 90 or to 120 days. That means the financially low stress building within the company. It's a well-known indicator. So that's probably why people thought that things might not be all well. Right, because the longer it takes for someone to pay a supplier, the less money is coming in. Well, it means they're hoarding cash and they're trying to take as long as possible to pay their bills.

26:36and that means that they're trying to hoard what little money they have and eke it out and that's not a good sign. That's interesting. So there were also other rumours besides the suppliers. In fact the business community were becoming quite suspicious of Wildberry's growth in Russia and they speculated the company must be getting some form of help. So Wildberry's decided they needed to give more interviews to wrestle back control of their public image. That's really interesting isn't it? So this is the moment where he says we need to get something out there. We So Wildbury's hired a PR firm to help.

27:09Former staff claimed that Vladislav didn't want to be the spokesman, so Tatiana stepped up. And this is the point that some claim, as we've already discussed, that Tatiana Kim's whole rags-to-riches narrative, English teacher starting company by herself, one on maternity leave with postnatal depression, all of that was actually dreamt up. A former Wildbury's employee, who's an ally of Vladislav, has said in terms of marketing, it was a genius idea. Kim gave interviews where she claimed she wore only clothes from Wild Breeze and she laughed at the idea of splashing out on designer labels. You know, like you can really see the public image being built here, right?

27:44Totally. But the Bell, that's the independent Russian news outlet, claims that this is all part of rebranding of Kim as a businesswoman from the plough, was the quote they used. Either way, it worked. It calmed the suppliers down and then won back their loyalty. However, Vladislav and some former employees claim that this narrative erases his role in his ownership of Wild Breeze. One senior employee who's not allied with either spouse described Vladislav as the company's god and tsar. A former head of Russia's e-commerce trade association said, I don't think anyone had any doubts that both were the co-founders who ran the business together.

28:19But after 2017, it was reported that Tatiana owned 99 % of Wildberries and Vladislav owned 1%. And he was referred to as an IT technician who left his job that year to join her at Wildberries in some articles. I wonder why this is. Now, if the version that he's co-founder, he's co-runner, he's the god and czar of the company, why would they put a shareholder register together which showed her as the 99 % owner of Wildberries, whereas him just 1 %? It could be like she's the mom and all that. So she attracts less attention than he, White, from other businesses. The truth is, we don't know. But by 2019, Wildberries was reported to be worth$1.2 billion, which made it the fourth most valuable internet company in Russia.

29:04Tatiana Kim, as the declared now sole owner of Wildberries, was included on the Forbes magazine's list of billionaires for the first time with an estimated net worth of$1 billion. That made Tatiana the second woman in Russia to become a billionaire. By this point, Kim had four children with her husband, Vladislav, and they were living in a nicer part of Moscow, but still renting. She shunned luxury and glamorous events. You know, she told interviewers she spent most of her free time with her children, reading books and watching Lord of the Rings. Any parent will know this story, but she's officially made it.

29:36She is a billionaire.

29:43So let's go beyond a billion. Tatiana did not waste much time celebrating her new billionaire status. The same year she was listed on the Forbes list, Wildberries expanded into Europe. By 2021, it launched in the US. Then they make a big move into finance. Now, this is quite odd to me because in February 2021, Wildberries became the owner of Standard Credit Bank and renamed it Wildberries Bank. And by 2022, Wildberries was issuing its own bank card for buyers. In 2023, they launched a microcredit company, VB Finance. And this is truly quite odd to me you don't get Topshop Bank you know or ASOS Bank.

30:20What you do get though is some big finance departments of like for example Marks and Spencers their Marks and Spencers card they that is a quite a big finance operation and a lot of people joke it's very common in the car industry of course a lot most cars bought on finance there used to be something called the General Motors Acceptance Corporation and that was the financing arm of GM and people used to joke that GM was basically a bank which sold a few cars on the side so so really it's actually not that unusual well it's yeah but you know i i think it's quite unusual for an internet company or unless you consider this the beginnings of a kind of klarna type push um where you're finding you know you you having a financing mechanism to pay for online deliveries that could be what they were thinking true and you know this was an interesting move for them but it did give them some unwanted attention Yes, because between 2022 and 2023, Wildberries was hit by a wave of government inspections.

31:18Health and safety officers visited their facilities 400 times in 2022. And in 2023, that number jumped to more than 1 ,600. And then in January 2024, a fire destroyed$100 million worth of supplier stock in a Wildberries warehouse. They had to pay the sellers 95 % of the damages. and authorities opened a negligence case against them, blaming the company for not having up-to-date fire safety paperwork, which Wildberries denied. Now, in other countries, this case might have resulted in some sort of fine. But in Russia, things like that, fire, inspections, can signal what is the start of a hostile takeover.

31:57And the economists suggest Wildberries was under pressure to source Kreischer. Now, Chrysia is a kind of, in China, you would probably call it wanshi. Yeah. Yeah, which is like... Protection. Kind of political cover. In the old days, it would be just out and out gangster protection money, which is like, you know, we wouldn't want something terrible to happen to your store, like burn down, would we now? Said wild glasses knocked off the table. Exactly. But it translates actually literally as roof. But in the 90s, it referred to business paying criminal gangster protection. And then it became more recently political, influential people offer protection from regulators, for example, lawsuits, hostile takeovers.

32:38We covered some of this in the Roman Abramovich episode that you need. You basically, if you think you can run a successful business without any outside interference, you're mistaken. You're going to need protection from someone. And it's the from someone where this story gets really complicated. It is because shortly after the fire, Tatiana Kim began merger talks with a small firm called Russ Outdoor. Now, on the face of it, this merger did not make a lot of sense commercially because Russ Outdoor was a small company. It produced billboard ads and had no online experience. So this was quite a mystifying turn.

33:12Yeah. And this is David and Goliath. Wildberries dwarfed them. In 2023, Wildberries revenues were$2.7 billion. Russ Outdoor's revenues were$300 million. That's one ninth, so, you know, just around 10%. And Vladislav's representative told The Economist magazine that Russ Outdoor had approached Tatiana with an offer to help ensure she didn't face criminal charges for the fire. Now, Tatiana's representatives have denied this, saying she was the one who initiated discussions with Russ Outdoor. And the Bell claimed that the head of Russ Outdoor, Mazoyan, had long been associated with Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire senator in the Russian parliament, they say is known for entering into deals with businesses facing challenging circumstances.

33:54The Bell claimed Kerimov then set up a meeting between Tatiana and Mezoian. Mezoian denies these claims, however. So a murky one. Tatiana denies meeting Kerimov, but by June this merger was done, while Berries handed over most of its assets for just 65 % of the new company. Russ Outdoor transferred no assets into the joint company, got a 35 % stake. and Russian media later confirmed that Vladimir Putin himself had signed off on the deal. So basically, Wildberries has handed over most of its assets. It's nine times the size of the other one and gets 65 % of the company. This feels like an old-fashioned shakedown to me.

34:29Yeah, if you're looking at it as an objective bystander, you're thinking to yourself, this looks like business suicide for the bigger company. Anyway, it's very opaque and we don't know all the answers to that. We've got to be completely honest about what we don't know in the analysis of this. Is it quite hard to do business in Russia without, you know, the state at least signing up to it? For sure. It is now. I mean, there was a period when it was like the Wild West, which was after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And you had basically state assets which were owned by the USSR being divvied up by a bunch of oligarchs.

35:04Oligarchs and pals. And yeah, so huge industries, steel, oil, aluminium, ending up in private hands. And the numbers were big and there were billions at stake. And so it got quite violent at times. It really was quite a lawless place. Vladimir Putin, in a way, is credited with being a new sheriff in town. And in some ways, they all pay tribute to him. And he's the ultimate protector. So they can go on, they can own their fancy houses all around the world. Until, of course, he invades Crimea and then again invades Ukraine, in which case all those fancy yachts and whatever get impounded around the world.

35:40But it is hard to do business in Russia without the Kremlin. Without some kind of protection, for sure. But it also crucially doesn't mean that you, you know, excuse yourself from all this drama. Because in July 2024, a few months after Tatiana and Vladislav had separated, and a month after the merger, Vladislav posted a video about it saying, my wife left me and got involved with a dodgy crowd who are raiding our business under the guise of a merger and funneling the assets. So the head of the Chechen Republic, a key Putin ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, then commented on the video. He said he would help bring home Tatyana and protect Wildberries from the dodgy crowd, alluding to Suleiman Karimov and the head of Russ Outdoor, a guy called Robert Merzian.

36:22And friends of Vladislav were surprised to see this connection with Kadyrov. They all thought it was just part of a bitter divorce. And that brings us right back to that hot September day in Moscow. 18th September 2024 Vladislav arrived at the Wildberries office with a group of men from Chechnya and Ramzan Kedrov himself Tatyana said that Sergei Anufiev the bodybuilder who you remember invested in Wildberries in 2006 was also part of this group of men now inside Kim had some security of her own it was made up of men from Ingushetia and Dagestan two regions with complex and at times pretty tense relations with neighbouring Chechnya and there are disputes about who shot first but the two men shot dead were Wildberry security guards from Ingushetia.

37:05Now, Vladislav claimed he was at the offices for a pre-arranged meeting to talk about the merger. Tatiana, on her part, said no talks were ever arranged and contacted the police, saying her husband had attempted to seize the company's offices. And just hours after the shooting, Kim posted a video on Telegram, the messaging site, addressing Vladislav directly. She said, through tears, young guys died. Vladislav, what are you doing? how will you look your parents and our children in the eye? How could you let this situation get so insanely out of hand? And Vladislav was arrested and charged with murder a day later, but he was pretty soon released from jail and seemingly, as far as we can see, isn't facing charges.

37:47He credited Ramzan Kadyrov for his release, saying his team had offered help. Thanks to this, I believe I'm still alive and not in jail. A few weeks after that shooting, Kadyrov appeared on local TV and increased regional tensions. by declaring a blood field on Kerimov. Now, many worry that this would mean more violence connected to the shootout. But at the time of recording, no further escalation appears to have taken place. And Tatiana gave an interview about her marriage a month after the shooting, describing it as unhappy and emotionally abusive. She said she now lives a quiet life with her seven children from her marriage of Vladislav and plans to remain single.

38:24Now, some political analysts understandably see that Wildberries' feud as part of a bigger pattern of feuding in wartime Russia. As sanctions and isolation bite, as they are right now, potatoes are up 167%, just a random fact, compared to a year ago. Russia has begun reshuffling ownership of major businesses. It's transferred control of valuable assets to individuals with closer ties to the Kremlin. In April 2025, a Moscow court awarded Tatiana full ownership of wild berries, ruling that her ex-husband Vladislav must transfer his remaining stake to her. So it's a question of who's on which side of some bitter regional conflicts within Russia at a time of financial hardship in Russia because of the sanctions.

39:09And actually what's happened lately is a falling oil price. Oil prices shot up after the invasion of Ukraine. But as the rest of the world has pumped more oil to replace Russian oil, prices have gone down and that's been bad for the Russian economy. But this doesn't mean that Wildberries are staying static. So in June 2025, the newly merged Wildberries and Russ Outdoor Company, which is called RVB, announced plans to expand into Africa following recent launches in Georgia, Tajikistan and the UAE. And Robert Merzian is now reported as CEO of RVB, while Tatiana Kim remains CEO of Wildberries, now a subsidiary within RVB.

39:46Interesting, that expansion into Africa, because Russia has enormous influence in Africa. If you go to East Africa, they have incredibly influential ties there. So if you are a friend of Russia, you have an in to Africa in many places. So that's kind of interesting. So what a wild story that is. Yeah, and also a developing story because the shooting happened in September 2024. Yeah. So what we do now is we go through a bunch of categories, wealth, controversy, giving back philanthropy, power and legacy, and give them marks out of zero to 10. There's plenty of room for debate on these ones. And then we're going to throw it to you, ask you all what you think, whether they're good, bad or just another billionaire.

40:32So we're going to start with wealth worth$4.6 billion. But the story is a rags to riches. It really is. We don't know if we believe it. Well, you have to. Well, if you talk to independent media outlets like The Bell, you know, this is all kind of a PR fabrication. Well, I don't think the rags bit is. I don't think anyone suggests she was rich at the beginning. True. Right. So it was more a kind of qualitative kind of polish to like, you know, English teacher struggling, children, living, whatever. I don't think anyone ever thought that she herself didn't come from a pretty modest background. Yeah.

41:11And, you know, one of the things we try and judge our billionaires on in terms of wealth is whether they flash the cash. And she definitely doesn't. She keeps it quite low key. But I imagine also sometimes in Russia, it might be more sensible to keep... Stum. Keep stum. Exactly. Don't flash the wealth, actually. so you don't attract the attention of some unsavoury characters. I think that was one of the reasons why London became such a mecca for Russian billionaires during a certain period a few years ago because this is the place where you could buy a Ferrari, where you could go and buy your diamonds, where you could go shopping for groceries and harris.

41:45Without getting a raised eyebrow from the local law enforcement or indeed the local politicians in Russia. Anyway, but we should also recognise she is only the second Russian woman to be a billionaire And she is now Russia's richest woman. So I'm going to give her a solid six for wealth. I think a six out of 10 is pretty doable for her. You know, being Russia's richest woman, that's a good title to have. Sure. Controversy. Well, there's no shortage of that. Well, in 2021, Wildberries staff complained that their wages no longer match the speed and pressure of their delivery targets. By 2023, Wildberries was fining delivery workers for damaged returns.

42:26that sparked some strikes. And of course, there's a small matter of two of her security men being shot dead at their offices. Tatiana is not implicated in those shootings. And although Vladislav was arrested, he was released. And at the time of recording, no one's been charged with the murder of the two men who died. And the status of that investigation, we think, is unclear. I still think that having a shooting, even vaguely happening on your premises, is going to drive that score up, I'm afraid. And your company has become a proxy battle for Chechen versus Kremlin interests. It's kind of interesting, isn't it?

43:03I think this is like a nine controversy for me. I think it's a nine for me as well. It's not quite a ten, but I mean... What do you need for a ten woman? I mean, we've done gun runners and drug traffickers. And this isn't quite it, but, you know, the shootings come pretty close to it. I was nine as well. So, yeah, I think you're right. I think we need a bit of room, but not a solid nine on controversy. Giving back, this is about charitable work, philanthropy, stuff like that. So Kim's actually talked about her charitable work during COVID. She says at the start of the pandemic, they bought a million masks in China.

43:35They chartered a flight. They brought them to Russia and distributed them to hospitals and charities for free. But other than that, there is actually not that much information about her philanthropy. OK, so I think that's one to zero. I would also say a million masks sounds impressive. What's the population of Russia? 143 million. So that's not even 1 % of the population. Okay, it's a zero for me. Yeah, I mean, a zero seems harsh, but I would give her just a one. Okay, zero is too harsh. I'll give a one for the effort. Okay. All right, power and legacy. The British tabloids have called Tatiana Kim a Putin-friendly oligarch.

44:14Now, she denies ever actually having met Putin, but there are reports linking her to top Russian officials, including the prime minister. Yeah. And Ukraine and Poland have both sanctioned her and Wildberries for alleged propaganda and ties to sanctioned banks. So, you know, quite a politically divisive character. But, you know, she has probably changed the way people in Russia shop. Yeah. I mean, the point is, Internet commerce is such a global phenomenon that someone was going to do it in Russia eventually. right and it was just a question of who was going to get the keys to the kingdom and that's why this is such an interesting one of political and regional power intrigue because there's clearly a massive prize on offer there and that i don't think we can credit tatiana kim with single-handedly inventing internet retail in russia if they hadn't done it somebody from germany would have done it but what is an achievement is that she's managed to carve out a real identity for her business in one which is dominated by real global players.

45:15So your Amazons and what have you. In the same way that Alibaba has in China, you could argue that Wildberries has done that in Russia. And also impressive that a woman could do this in Russia, which is still, to my understanding, quite a patriarchal place. I mean, you look at the other characters in the story and they are, you know, power brokers, businessmen, you know, they're all men. But power and legacy, I'm going to give her Russia's richest woman, seven. I would say Russia's richest woman gets an 8 out of 10 for me. Okay, a 7 for me, 8 for you. So she comes from a very modest background.

45:48You know, she's kind of built this website, if you believe her own PR story, out of nothing. Doing something that caters for Russian women at a time where Western companies weren't stepping up to the plate. It is quite an interesting story. Married her sweetheart who at the time, though, was running a fairly successful internet business. And that may have been the source of some of the funds that were used to expand it. but what an interesting story there's so much we don't know but what comes out of it I think is a really rich story in terms of the emergence of lots of trends and that's when I find these episodes so interesting is that they are drawn against the canvas of changing technology in terms of internet commerce changing political environments changing consumer behavior changing countries as well borders being shifted and all that kind of stuff so that's when I think this show is at its best and I think she's a good example of that.

46:42So we're going to have to now get your thoughts on asking whether Tatiana Kim is good, bad or just another billionaire. Yes, that's right. We want to hear from you as to why you think she's good, bad or just another billionaire. Why not email goodbadbillionaire at bbc.com or just drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001 917 686 1176. That's goodbadbillionaire, all one word, at bbc.com or 001 917 686 1176 We love getting your emails. Here's a couple that have come in. Hello, I joined so many people in thanking you for an outstanding podcast. Well, thank you. I've been a consumer of podcasts for years, like many starting with cereal.

47:24My mum put me on to GBB, Good Bad Billionaire She lives in Devon and I live in Dubai and we each listened then discussed the episode when we catch up on video calls. I particularly enjoyed the nuanced approach exactly as you promised the good and the bad. Hungry for more. Natalie who's a Devon mum and Lina who's the daughter in Dubai thank you Natalie and thank you Lina Hi I'm enjoying the Good Bad Billionaire podcast the first one I heard was Ford and I have now started from the beginning and I've been loving them so much oh that's great I've been listening to two or three a day oh my gosh that's a lot so far my favourite is Chuck Feeney in terms of both his ability to spot the opportunity to make money and then the amazing philanthropy I agree Oprah was good but Chuck still wins out I am looking forward to hearing more episodes Best wishes from Marco.

48:10Thanks, Marco. I think we're both agreed on Chuck Feeney. He really was a special guy. So who do we have on the next episode? We have a person who pioneered the idea of the disappearing message. Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat. That's right. A frat boy made good who became a billionaire in his early 20s. Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Tamsin Currie. The editor is Paul Smith and it's a BBC Studios audio production. For the BBC World Service, the commissioning editor is John Manel.

49:07Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.