They say that entrepreneurial skills cannot be taught — you either have the necessary qualities to build a business or not. It is a controversial statement, but many leaders of large companies confirm it with their own example. Oleg Belay, CEO of the TRINFICO Investment Group, is one of these leaders.
He co-founded a company at a time when the market was extremely unstable, and today, more than 30 years later, he continues to run his business. Industry experts often mention the businessman’s “innate” entrepreneurial talents. Despite his young age, he was able to make the right management decisions in the first years of the company’s existence. His decisions helped TRINFICO grow as a stable business and get through many crises without serious losses.
He was the one to take the lead at the investment group after its consolidation. Oleg Belay’s biography is also interesting because he began his business journey as a university student. Having no start-up capital and no assistance from influential relatives, he was able to create a company, which later became one of the largest investment groups in Russia.
Biography of the Entrepreneur
Belay Oleg Viktorovich was born in Moscow, where he also spent his early life and received a higher education. He grew up in a family of programmers who knew nothing about business. Nevertheless, the future entrepreneur himself took an early interest in various commercial projects as a student.
Early Life and Education
Oleg spent his childhood in Moscow. His friends and family remember him as an active and extremely sociable kid with a purposeful and inquisitive mind. He was passionate about the exact sciences, but at the same time showed interest in literature and history.
In the end, the future entrepreneur decided to get an engineering degree. He went to the University of Electronic Technology and, after defending his final thesis, successfully graduated from it with a degree in engineering physics.
Interest in Entrepreneurship
When still a student, Oleg seriously considered devoting his life to science. He genuinely loved studying physics. However, later his interest in science was replaced by a passion for entrepreneurship.
While studying at MIET, Oleg Belay met many like-minded people. Back then, business was mostly a young people’s domain. They were more likely to take risks, knew how to handle pressure, and had the courage to start a company in a highly volatile market.
First Business Projects
Even as a university student, Oleg Belay thought about starting his own company. However, having no definitive business idea, he considered different options and constantly researched the market. Yesterday’s student was not afraid to try his hand at various projects in attempts to find a promising niche.
Management Experience
Planning skills and strategic thinking are among the most important entrepreneurial qualities inherent to Oleg Belay. TRINFICO became the largest, but not the first company that he ran in his life.
The entrepreneur gained his first management experience back when he was still a university student. He was good at networking and constantly received job offers from various business owners. Oleg was able to develop his leadership skills by participating in several business projects. These skills later proved invaluable to his own company.
Starting a News Agency
Despite proving himself to be a great executive, Oleg Belay soon stopped participating in third-party business projects. He never wished to be just an employee, no matter how important his role might be. The young man’s dream was to start his own business and make independent decisions concerning its operations.
Following his desire, Oleg became a co-founder of a news agency. It specialized in writing financial news and reports on the Russian stock market. Soon, its materials were in great demand among leading Russian media outlets. However, the founders of the news agency eventually lost their interest in journalism and decided to change their business focus. Many experts predicted a great future for the agency, but even the brightest prospects could not steer its owners away from their decision.
Role in the Development of TRINFICO
In 2023, the investment group celebrated its 30th anniversary. It became one of the few companies in its segment that were created soon after the collapse of the USSR and managed to survive a series of major crises. All this time, Oleg Belay was part of the senior management team at TRINFICO. He played a vital role in the inception and further history of the company.
Founding of the Investment Group
The company was founded by young and ambitious people in 1993. Among them was Oleg Belay, the current CEO of the company. In the first years of its operations, the TRINFICO investment group was positioned as a brokerage firm in the Moscow market. The company traded newly issued securities and had to survive and grow in a highly competitive market.
However, the latter was not the only problem that entrepreneurs had to face back then:
- The country’s transition from one economic system to another was accompanied by rapidly changing laws and regulations.
- The newly formed Russian stock market lacked comprehensive regulation, which often lead to its destabilization.
- One crisis was followed by another, forcing many entrepreneurs to shut down their businesses almost immediately after opening them.
- Foreign competitors of the young local companies had more resources and experience on their side.
- Russian people were interested in investments, but had little confidence in them because of frequent fraud schemes and the novelty of financial instruments that were fundamentally unfamiliar to the vast majority of citizens.
Nevertheless, TRINFICO managed to quickly build trust with clients. Within just a few years, the company transformed from a small Moscow broker into a large investment group. Leading organizations trusted it to bring their assets to organized markets. The company also began to manage assets for non-governmental Pension Fund. It delivered excellent performance in this area and eventually was able to sign a contract with the state Pension Fund of the Russian Federation as well.
Further Growth
The management team chose to focus on a stable business growth, and this strategy proved effective early on during the first years of the company’s existence. TRINFICO successfully handled several crises and quickly expanded the list of investment instruments available to its clients. Oleg Belay continuously improved the business development strategy and paid great attention to asset structuring.
However, even wide risk diversification and powerful analytics could not help TRINFICO avoid the crisis of 1998, which affected all market players. Back then, clients of investment companies lost all their money that were invested in GKOs (state short-term bonds). The financial market went into a tailspin. The investment group was forced to reduce its volume of operations.
Oleg Belay noted that the 1998 crisis taught the management team a lot. Asset protection became an absolute priority for all company executives. Today, it strives to protect client assets by all means available. That is why thousands of private and institutional investors put their trust in TRINFICO and the company’s client base is steadily growing.
Latest Achievements
In 2013, the investment group underwent consolidation, after which Oleg Belay became the CEO of TRINFICO. This process, however, did not affect the management arrangement, which retained its vertically integrated structure and remained extremely efficient. Over more than 20 years at the helm of the company, the entrepreneur helped it achieve impressive results.
Today, TRINFICO:
- is independent from state and private capital;
- provides a wide range of services, such as asset management, crisis management, brokerage and depository services, and so on;
- is one of the largest companies in its segment;
- constantly expands its client base;
- has an experienced analytics team.
Thanks to these and other factors, the rating of reliability and quality of TRINFICO services was upgraded to the “A+|ru.iv|” level in 2024. The National Rating Agency evaluated the rating outlook as “stable.” The latter means that it is highly probable that the company will maintain the current score in the future.
Green Policies and Charity
Today, Oleg Belay continues his work as CEO of TRINFICO. He strives to stay up to date on all fundamental processes in the investment group. The entrepreneur also makes sure to integrate important practices into its business development strategy, many of which have already delivered excellent results.
Loyalty to ESG Values
As an entrepreneur, Oleg Belay has always been loyal to the “green agenda.” Being a strong advocate of ESG principles, he proposed their introduction into the company’s business strategy. Even at a time when many large companies renounce implementing such projects, the businessman remains loyal to green policies.
Oleg notes that the ESG concept is not only about the environment. It is also instrumental to the stable and sustainable development of the company. The entrepreneur is convinced that only this path will allow the investment group to successfully manage crises and maintain a high level of risk diversification.
Charity
Oleg Belay is a known philanthropist, but he does not like to talk about his personal contribution to various charitable projects. The businessman believes that helping others should not involve publicity in most cases. At the same time, he thinks that charity must be productive. That is why the businessman prefers to work on each individual problem systematically, as opposed to contributing to charitable causes chaotically.
To this end, Oleg proposed to create a charitable foundation called VMESTE SMOZHEM (TOGETHER WE CAN). Later, he became one of its trustees. The foundation aims to reduce poverty and assists vulnerable groups of the population. It offers grants to projects that share its values. Its funding resources are steadily growing, which allows it to help an increasing number of charities and other nonprofit organizations every year.
