Denis Sverdlov

Denis Lvovich Sverdlov (Денис Львович Свердлов; born 6 June 1978) is a British-based Russian businessman, and the founder and former CEO of Arrival, a British electric vehicle manufacturer based in London. The businessman who was worth $11.7 billion in April 2021 lost his billionaire status in April 2022. Sverdlov's 94% decline in net worth is the largest wealth loss of anyone outside China who appeared on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in 2021. In 2012–13, he was Russia's deputy minister for communications and mass media.

Early life
Sverdlov was born in 1978 in Agara in the then Soviet republic of Georgia. He was raised in Saint Petersburg by his engineer parents who were employed at a state-operated factory specializing in manufacturing fan blades used in electrical turbines. He has a degree in economics from Saint Petersburg State University of Engineering and Economics.

Career
After graduating in 2000 Sverdlov founded IT Vision, an IT consulting firm.

From 2003 to 2007, Sverdlov was the co-founder and managing partner of Korus Consulting, an IT consulting firm in Russia.

Sverdlov was a co-founder and chief executive of Yota, a Russian mobile broadband company, until its acquisition by MegaFon in 2012.

Post-acquisition Sverdlov set up the Kinetik Trust to invest in a range of promising technologies and bring them to market.

He was Russia's deputy Communications and Mass Media Minister for 15 months before stepping down in 2013. He left this position following new legislation which banned government officials from holding assets abroad.

Sverdlov founded Arrival and began its operations in the UK in 2015. He was its CEO from March 2016 until November 2022. In March 2021 Arrival went public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, CIIC Merger Corp.

He is also the founder of Roborace – the world’s first driverless electric racing platform.

Personal life
Sverdlov is married, with three children, and the family moved from France to London in September 2015.