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Eldar Abdrazakov
EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Class of 2024, Kazakhstan
Founder and CEO of Centras Group
Share the joy of Eldar Abdrazakov’s winning moment at Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Kazakhstan.
Eldar Abdrazakov is empowering new growth by educating, enabling and equipping businesses.
An accidental entrepreneur, Eldar Abdrazakov never dreamed of starting his own business. As a high-performing investment banking leader with Kazakhstan’s largest industrial-financial conglomerate, he had been excited to help grow and transform the institution into an investment-grade financial services powerhouse. But when the institution bet heavily on speculative investments, he resisted and left.
Starting from scratch is never easy, but in 2004, Eldar founded Centras in a competitive market, transforming it from a boutique advisory firm to a leading investment management and insurance firm. With Centras, he raised the country’s first private equity fund and expanded on insurance business while bringing in high professional standards.
In a country where two-thirds of professionals earn an hourly rate under US$1, capitalizing on new growth is extremely difficult. Kazakhstan’s dependence on commodity exports and price dumping pushed Eldar to explore opportunities upstream and downstream of the value chain. Today, Centras serves over 1.5 million customers annually through its insurance business and seeks to transform professional services by tripling professionals’ earnings through digitalization, upskilling and sharing.
In addition to leading Centras, Eldar is working toward a customer-centric, gig-driven and network-powered future. Central to his strategy is the role of education, which he implements through his learning platforms, the Kazakhstan Growth Forum and the Professionalize Kazakhstan! Movement. Growth plays a pivotal role, fostered through strategic partnerships, innovative financial solutions and franchising. Eldar also aims to equip businesses with modern tools such as services on-demand, enterprise applications and personalized marketing.
The best thing in entrepreneurship is self-discovery. It’s amazing how even the smallest improvements can give major boosts to productivity and expansion beyond your limits.