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Timur Turlov

Chief Executive Officer, Director, Freedom Holding

Search every verified Timur Turlov interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding and president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, was elected President of FIDE in September 2026. In the lead-up to the election, he outlined a platform focused on financial sustainability, grassroots development, and digitalization. He proposed a development fund to support smaller federations through open tournaments, travel subsidies, and coaching access, and emphasized the importance of media development to make chess more commercially viable. Turlov also stated his intention to rely on Viswanathan Anand for expertise in sport-related policy and to provide a financial backstop from his corporation to enable a two-year event calendar. During the campaign, Turlov discussed his personal history with chess, noting that his grandfather taught him the game at age five and that he returned to it when his children began learning. He described chess as a tool for understanding his own decision-making processes and said he plays with his children on weekends. In interviews, he addressed geopolitical topics, stating he was proud to be a citizen of Kazakhstan and that he had renounced his Russian citizenship and disposed of business operations in Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine. He also called for the war to end as soon as possible and said his role at FIDE would be to unite the chess community.

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“Grassroots developments and social chess development is not less important than professional chess development. Maybe top players is best for commercialization and we will be happy to help them to earn money and monetize their prestige and success. But to make sure that we will have new champions tomorrow, that we will build a proper and sustainable community, of course we have to think about grassroots developments ”

“I want to help chess to become financially sustainable and I want them to become a real business in the end of the day. I think that's the goal of my presidency. And I want to see every chess federation much less dependent on any grant seeking and fundraising on their day-to-day business.”

“We believe that if each federation will pay including FIDE will pay much more attention to media, that will make chess much more financially sustainable. Because for each government much easier to support a popular federation. For each corporation, for each marketing department of corporation will be much easier convincing the senior management and board of directors if they supporting a popular sport. And that's why”

“It's very simple. To actually get some global exposure to chess, as you seen it still could be a contract with single million of dollars, and it will be a very good visibility on a global scale in like almost a year long time. And which other kind of sport can get you some the same results? Because chess is a big community, it's more than 200 million of people play chess, and it's a great club of people, very selecte”

“Chess has a great potential. We need to work with broadcast to make the beauty of chess more understandable and more accessible for people with low ratings. I think that's the future because now when you watch some greatest competition like the rapid and blitz championship, the classic match, sometimes you have to be a chess professional to understand the whole beauty of the game, and if you are not a chess professio”

“I think I'm proud to be a citizen of Kazakhstan actually a middle power a country who is try to keep a right balance in this region and try to advocate for this and definitely try to keep independence in there for foreign policy because independence I think the best asset for Kazakhstan and the asset which is appreciated by every person including. So I'm sure that my role at Fed is to unite people to unite community ”

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