About Vladimir Potanin
In a 2021 interview, Vladimir Potanin discussed his approach to philanthropy, stating that he began charitable work long before establishing his foundation over twenty years ago. He described his view that philanthropy should be systematic and effective, focusing on addressing problems the state does not or cannot solve, rather than competing with it or attempting to eradicate social ills entirely. Potanin emphasized the importance of listening to real needs, measuring results, and adapting world-class cultural institutions to the Russian context rather than imposing foreign models.
In a 2019 interview, Potanin, as CEO of Norilsk Nickel, expressed belief in digital technologies for tokenizing products and improving efficiency, noting interest from Chinese, Arab, European, and American investors. Regarding trade tensions, he said he disagreed that commodities are the first to suffer and argued that technology exchange suffers most. Asked about U.S. sanctions, Potanin stated he was not worried, saying "I did nothing wrong," and that any sanctions would not benefit anyone. On Russian leadership, he described Vladimir Putin as "a symbol of stability" for Russia and said he would vote for continuity, though he noted he is not a politician and does not know how to arrange that.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Vladimir Potanin's recent appearances.
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Transcript (12 segments)
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Interviewer0:11
You're looking into creating these crypto tokens for the commodities market. Why?
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Vladimir Potanin0:18
I need to say that I believe in digital technologies because they do not only allow industrial companies to digitize their operations, their sales, but also tokenize their products or services and present them to the market in a more efficient way with lower transaction costs, quicker. It also opens an opportunity to collect big data on the basis of digitalization of our operations. These kind of tokens... I think more or less everybody is interested in those technologies, but because it concerns everybody — consumers, industrial companies, governments — Chinese investors, Arab investors, and others are very much interested. I also had quite a series of conversations with European and American banks and financial companies. I think many people understand that digitalization is some kind of future of the economy, and all traditional branches of our economy are supposed to move into a new world, a world of digits.
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Interviewer2:12
The trade war is dominating. Focused on creating things, and the war terminology is something which is not making me excited. Of course, the sooner it ends with some kind of solution, the better. Have you felt it though?
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Vladimir Potanin2:27
Not really, because I would disagree with those who say that commodities are first to suffer because of China issues or growth or whatever. I think technology, the exchange of technology, that's what suffers in the first place. Because in order to achieve good results in this new digital technology, we need to share business digital solutions, we need to share intellectual property rights.
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Interviewer3:10
Kremlin list by the US Treasury, people on that list can be personally sanctioned. Are you worried about that?
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Vladimir Potanin3:17
Not really. I did nothing wrong. I like Americans, I like French, I like British.
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Interviewer3:21
But your second biggest shareholder, Rusal, was sanctioned. Has that hurt your investor or the way people view your company?
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Vladimir Potanin3:28
My personal feelings, I'm not very much anxious about that. As to Rusal's participation in Norilsk Nickel, theoretically it might create some problems, but it doesn't create it for the time being. And our shareholders' agreement allows us to execute our plans.
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Interviewer4:11
Palladium — and you cannot drive an automobile without palladium.
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Vladimir Potanin4:15
Look, I hate arguing in terms of... I just said that I do not feel myself as any enemy to anybody on one hand. On the other hand, we produce many products which are really needed by companies all over the world: palladium, nickel, etc. Any kind of war, any kind of sanction will not benefit anyone in the world. I just count on simple logic: we do something which people need us to do, and we will continue.
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Interviewer4:53
You made your...
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Vladimir Potanin5:12
I think that for Russia, Putin is a symbol of stability. And I think people in other countries need to understand that. And of course, I would vote for a certain continuity. I do not know how — I'm not a politician, which means I do not know how to arrange that. But I think that people need to understand that for Russia, stability and the leader who has great respect from the population is a very important thing.
