Leonid Lebedev is a Cypriot-Russian billionaire businessman, and a former elected representative in Russia's Upper House of Parliament. Lebedev is sole owner of Sintez Group, a privately held energy, oil and gas and property development company with more than $1 billion in annual sales. In 1988 he co-founded the company, which according to Forbes Russia now ranks 154th among private companies in Russia. He has also been a businessman in music and film, serving as a producer, during the 1980s and more recently, in the creation of independent films such as Hipsters and The Geographer Drank His Globe Away. In 2002 he was elected to the Federation Council, Russia's Upper House of Parliament, representing the Republic of Chuvashia.
Life and career
Leonid Lebedev was born in Moscow. He earned a degree in engineering from the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia in 1979. He served as an consultant to the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Mosconcert during the early 1980s.
Early entrepreneurship
In 1988, just after Perestroika, Lebedev co-founded Sintez International, an American joint venture, which traded in commodities and industrial supplies. According to Forbes, Lebedev is "one of the few Soviets who experimented with joint business ventures between the capitalistic US and the socialistic USSR in the 1980s." He is "not your typical Russian businessman who took advantage of early privatization or operated under some influential politician's wing." Forbes further states, "He sunk wells where there were none and struck black gold," pointing out his "entrepreneurial experience" accumulated in "tumultuous times in Russia." In Western Siberia, Sintez built an oil production plant, called Negusneft, developed its infrastructure, and undertook industrial trading and exports. In 1989 Lebedev co-founded Sintez Records, a recording studio and label for underground rock artists. In February 2014, Lebedev sued his former partners, Viktor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik, for breach of contract for $2 billion in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Film producer
Lebedev is a "movie producer with more than a dozen feature films in his portfolio." He is a co-founder and a co-owner of the "Red Arrow" film studio in Russia. In 2008, he joined forces with director Valery Todorovsky to co-produce Hipsters a romantic comedy set in 1950s Moscow, and Russia's first post-Soviet musical. He also produced The Geographer Drank His Globe Away, which won the Gran Prix at the 2013 Kinotavr film festival and at the 2013 Film Festival Cottbus. With the help of his American daughter, Julia Lebedev, a USC graduate living in Los Angeles, Lebedev has entered the US film industry. They have formed a small film company, Code Red Productions, where he serves as financier, while Julia identifies promising screenplays, potential partners and supervises production. Recent works include The Good Doctor co-produced with the film's star Orlando Bloom and "Prophet," which is in production and features the animation voices of Salma Hayek and Liam Neeson. Lebedev and his daughter Julia are co-executive producers on the Netflix series "Dear White People" .
Personal
Lebedev, who is a widower, lives in Moscow, as does his other daughter, Yana, who has founded an online fashion guide. He frequently participates in sailing competitions on his RC44 yacht with the Russian sailing team Synergy. He is a helmsman and co-owner of this team. In 2013, Lebedev earned a PhD by Belgorad State Technological University in colloidal chemistry In 2017, it was reported in The Guardian that Lebedev had acquired Cypriot citizenship through a "Golden visa" scheme. Lebedev supports many philanthropies in culture and education. Lebedev "has a reputation for discretion as a patron of the arts," he is a founder and main sponsor of the Chuvashia Fund acting in the Russian region of the same name and one of the major sponsors of the New National Contemporary Arts Center in Moscow. He is a member of the board of trustees in Moscow-based State University for Art Studies.
