Biography, political and social initiatives of deputy Andrei Skoch

Andrei Skoch is a well-known Russian politician, deputy of the State Duma, philanthropist, and former businessman. In 1999, he left the business world to engage in social and political activity, spheres where he is still active to the present day.

• Andrei Vladimirovich Skoch was born on January 30, 1966 in the village of Nikolskoye in the Moscow region. After receiving a certificate of secondary education, he undertook military service in the Soviet Army as a member of an airborne reconnaissance company.
• In the 1990s, he studied at the Sholokhov Moscow State Open Pedagogical University in the field of Psychology. Later he wrote his dissertation on philanthropy, which he successfully defended in 2000, becoming a candidate of science.
• Andrei Skoch showed his entrepreneurial abilities in the late 1980s, when, together with his business partner Lev Kvetnoi, he organized his first business: a baking cooperative. Later, the comrades turned their efforts in a more profitable direction and started trading in computer accessories.
• Skoch and Kvetnoi did not stop there-- they were constantly looking for new ideas and solutions which could lead to increased profits. Thus, the partners reoriented to the sphere of oil refining and the sale of petroleum products. Eventually, they were selling gasoline through their own network of gas stations. The business was going well, the enterprise was developing, and the partners’ income was growing, when suddenly, the business faced a serious problem: a shortage of oil on the market.
• To solve this problem, Andrei turned to businessman Alisher Usmanov, who, by that time, was already engaged in profitable production in the petrochemical industry. Usmanov could not find any raw materials, but he offered his partners to participate in his new company “Interfin”. Skoch and Kvetnoi accepted the offer and, in this way, changed the direction of their business again, this time moving into the field of investment and finance.
• The scale of the organization's activities grew rapidly, and it soon began buying up assets of industrial enterprises in the Belgorod region
• “Interfin" acquired stakes in two metallurgical plants and was later renamed into “Metalloinvest”. In one of the purchased enterprises - the JSC “Lebedinsky Mining and Processing Plant" (LGOK) - Andrei Vladimirovich Skoch took the post of Deputy General Director.
• LGOK is one of the leading producers of iron ore raw materials in Russia, a leader in the production of hot briquetted iron in Europe and commercial HBI in the world. Being a city-forming enterprise, the factory bears serious social pressure. Andrei Vladimirovich has repeatedly initiated meetings with the local population, during which he got acquainted with the main problems and requests of citizens. This gave him an idea to try his hand in politics: the entrepreneur wanted to more actively participate in people's lives and help his country.