Tigran Oganesovich Khudaverdyan (, ; born 28 December 1981) is an businessman, former executive at

Yandex Yandex LLC ( rus, Яндекс, r=Yandeks, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian technology company that provides Internet-related products and services including a web browser, search engine, cloud computing, web mapping, online food ordering, streaming ...

N.V.

Early life

Born in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

Armenian SSR The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR), also known as Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia bordered the Soviet republics ...

in 1981, Khudaverdian graduated from the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, physics department in 2004. Before joining Yandex, he participated in developing internet projects and headed a web studio.

Career

Tigran Khudaverdyan joined Yandex in April 2006, as a project manager for portal services and technologies. Since then he has led several successful Yandex projects, including Yandex.Browser and Yandex.Navigator. From 2009 to 2012, he was Head of Division for Portal Products and Mobile Apps. In 2012, he spearheaded the launch of Yandex.Browser, positioning it as a direct competitor to Google Chrome. Since 2012 he has been the Head of Direction for Yandex.Browser and

Yandex.Taxi Yandex Taxi (; stylised as Yandex.Taxi), a division of Yandex, operates a ridesharing company in Russia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Israel and UAE. The Yandex Taxi div ...

and has been appointed Head of Product Development in 2013. He moved to the Yandex.Taxi business in 2015, and has served as chief executive officer of MLU B.V., ride-hailing and food delivery joint venture with

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...

, since its formation. In 2016, Azerbaijan blocked the Uber-Yandex.Taxi partnership led by Khudaverdyan in the country because of Khudaverdyan's Armenian origins. In 2019 Tigran Khudaverdyan was appointed as Deputy CEO of Yandex N.V. and joined the company's Board of Directors. In 2020 he attended the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

in Davos as a speaker of "Inequality: A Barrier to Economic Growth" discussion. In March 2022, Tigran Khudaverdyan stepped down from his roles as executive director and deputy CEO due to

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

sanctions.

Personal life

Tigran is married and has five sons.

International sanctions

In 2014, the government of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

included Khudaverdyan in an annex of its

Special Economic Measures Act The ''Special Economic Measures Act'' () (S.C. 1992, c. 17) is a statute of the Parliament of Canada, passed in 1992 under the 24th Canadian Ministry, second Mulroney ministry in the 34th Canadian Parliament. The Government of Canada department r ...

, banning him from any economic activity in Canada. In March 2022, the European Union sanctioned Khudaverdyan as part of its package of economic penalties against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. He was sanctioned by the UK government in 2022 in relation to the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Khudaverdyan, Tigran Armenian businesspeople 21st-century Armenian people 1981 births Yandex people Businesspeople from Yerevan Russian computer scientists Moscow State University alumni Russian chief executives 21st-century Russian businesspeople Russian individuals subject to United Kingdom sanctions Living people