Dmitry Zimin

Zimin died in Switzerland on 22 December 2021, at the age of 88. He had one son, Boris.

After selling VimpelCom, Zimin invested in various enterprises. In 2019, BMT Private Equity, founded by Zimin, bought the Russian carsharing company BelkaCar.

In 2015, when Dynasty was included by the Russian Ministry of Justice on the list of “foreign agents”, Zimin closed the foundation. A number of scientists and public figures condemned the position of the Ministry of Justice regarding the fund, considering the decision to be bureaucratic and unfair.

Zimin was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2013, the first Russian philanthropist to win the award. In February 2015, he received the "For Fidelity to Science" award from the Russian Federation's Ministry of Education and Science. Minor planet 315493 Zimin was named after Dmitry Zimin.

In 2001, at the age of 68, Dmitry Zimin sold his controlling stake in VimpelCom and left the position of general director of the company. He was honored with the title of the Founder and Honorary President of the company.

Zimin was awarded the “Business-Olympus” prize in the nomination “Business Reputation” in 2001. The Russian edition of Forbes magazine rated Dmitry Zimin as the 63rd richest person in Russia in 2004 and the 52nd in 2005.

The company became successful and in 1996, it became the first Russian company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which required a degree of transparency uncommon for Russian companies at the time.

In the final years of the USSR, there was a sharp reduction in defense contracts for the Radio Technical Institute. In March 1991, Zimin founded a private commercial enterprise "KB Impulse". It hired the technical experts who worked at the Institute and specialized in communication systems.

In 1991, Zimin organized a group of technical experts within the Radio Technical Institute for a project to develop cellular telephone communications. At the initial stage, an American cellular equipment manufacturer and operator owned by the Fabela family was invited as a partner. In 1992, the joint-stock company "Vimpel-Communications" (VimpelCom) was established, with Zimin as President and General Director. Zimin managed the operational activity of the company, while his partner Augie K. Fabela II contributed equipment and money and managed sales and marketing. Soon VimpelCom launched a pilot AMPS station in Moscow.

Zimin obtained his PhD degree in 1963 and the post-doctoral degree in 1984. As a researcher of phased antenna arrays, he was appointed deputy chief designer of the Don-2N radar. In total, he created more than 100 scientific works and inventions.

In 1962, Zimin was invited to work in the Radio Technical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. For more than thirty-five years he held managerial positions at this institute: he was the head of the laboratory, then for fourteen years the head of the scientific department, and then the director of the center for the development of radio equipment.

Dmitry Zimin was already engaged in radio engineering when he was a student at Moscow secondary school number 59. In 1950, he entered the Faculty of Radio Electronics of the Aircraft of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), from which he graduated in 1957. Then he secured the position of an engineer in the Problem Laboratory of MAI, led by Mikhail Neumann.

Dmitry Borisovich Zimin (Russian: Дмитрий Борисович Зимин; 28 April 1933 – 22 December 2021) was a Russian radio scientist and businessman, who was the founder and honorary president of VimpelCom. From his retirement in the early 2000s, he became known as a philanthropist. He founded the Dynasty Foundation and the Zimin Foundation.