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At just the age of 21, Yerkin Tatishev entered Kazakhstan’s local business market with a vision to modernize and revive stalling industrial operations. Nearly three decades on, as founder and chairman of Kusto Group, he leads an international holding portfolio headquartered in Singapore, spanning energy, agriculture, construction materials, education, real estate and retail.
In 1997, Tatishev joined the team sent to rescue a failing mining operation in Zhitikara, a remote single-industry town in northern Kazakhstan, struggling with obsolete equipment, severe operational disruption, unemployment and power cuts. It was not the conventional starting point for an international business career: Tatishev entered through crisis management, in an environment where the company’s survival could not be separated from the town’s. The operation was eventually returned to profitability, leaving him with a conviction he still holds: businesses are strongest when employees and communities see themselves as participants in their success, not just recipients of decisions made elsewhere.
From those beginnings emerged Kusto Group, now operating across nine countries with more than 8,000 employees and annual turnover exceeding $1 billion, spanning oil and gas, agriculture, construction materials, real estate and consumer businesses. As founder and chairman, Tatishev sets the group’s strategic direction; in his view, the test of a founder is whether he can build organisations that think and act without his constant intervention. That same long view shapes his work outside the business; including High Tech Academy, which he founded in Almaty in 2017 to teach students through project-based learning, and his involvement with Almaty Management University (AlmaU).
Of Kusto’s many businesses, KazPetrol may now provide the clearest test of these ideas in practice: an industry defined by physical assets and long investment cycles, where the more interesting opportunity may lie not just in the oil produced, but in the technology and management systems built around it.
In this interview, Tatishev reflects on his path from industrial turnaround specialist to international chairman, the influence of kendo on his leadership, and whether KazPetrol can export its operating expertise as well as its energy.
You entered the industrial world at just 21, working on the turnaround of a deeply troubled operation in Zhitikara. What did that experience teach you about leadership?
I learned very early that a business is never only a balance sheet. The plant was in difficulty, but so was the town around it. Employment, salaries, electricity, schools and the confidence of families were all connected to the company’s future. We could not ask employees to rebuild the operation while ignoring the conditions in which they and their families were living. The turnaround required financial discipline and better management, but it also required trust. People had to believe there was a future worth working towards.
That experience shaped the way I still judge businesses today. Profitability matters because no company can survive without it. But durability comes from something broader: whether employees, partners and communities believe they have a genuine stake in the organisation’s success.
Kusto Group now operates in sectors ranging from oil and agriculture to property and construction materials. What makes such a diverse portfolio coherent?
From the outside, the businesses can look unrelated. An oilfield in Kazakhstan, a construction-materials producer in Europe and a real-estate development in Vietnam do not obviously belong in the same category. The common element is not the product. It is the method.
We look for businesses or markets with strong underlying potential that has not yet been fully developed. We then ask what is missing: capital, technology, management expertise, international partnerships or access to a larger market. Our role is to bring those elements together and build a business that can operate successfully over the long term.
Diversification, for us, isn’t about collecting assets; it’s about building a network where knowledge moves between companies and countries. The technologies differ, but lessons about people, capital allocation, partnerships and operational discipline travel surprisingly well.
You are chairman of Kusto Group rather than the operating CEO of every business. How do you lead without centralising every decision?
My responsibility is to set the direction, select strong leaders, allocate capital carefully and make sure the group’s principles are reflected in how each company operates. I shouldn’t pretend to be the best petroleum engineer, agronomist or property developer in the organisation, those businesses need leaders with deep sector knowledge and the authority to make decisions.
Decentralisation cannot mean the absence of accountability, though. Managers need clear objectives and reliable information. The real objective is to develop people who can take ownership and make decisions stronger than those the founder might have made alone.
Why has education become such an important part of your work outside Kusto Group?
Natural resources can create wealth, but they do not automatically create capability. Kazakhstan’s long-term competitiveness will depend on whether young people can analyse problems, work with others, and apply what they know in unfamiliar situations. Traditional education can sometimes place too much emphasis on reproducing information and too little on using it.
That was one of the reasons for establishing High Tech Academy. Project-based learning asks students to connect different subjects, create something together and take responsibility for the outcome. Those are the skills required in modern companies and entrepreneurial societies. I don’t think of education as a philanthropic activity sitting at the margins of the business. It’s part of the infrastructure any successful economy depends on. High Tech Academy was developed with San Diego’s High Tech High as Kazakhstan’s first project-based-learning school. Since opening in Almaty in 2020, it has served 540 students from kindergarten to Grade 10 on a campus shaped by Finnish educational principles, while providing financial aid to families in need and prioritising each child’s physical and emotional wellbeing.
Responsibility should be part of how a company participates in society. I have supported efforts to improve the education and care of children with disabilities and special needs, including children with Down syndrome. As the father of a child with special needs, this is personally important to me. During the pandemic, #KustoHelp supported more than 12,000 families and around 100 hospitals. The Yerzhan Tatishev Public Foundation has also provided 140 education grants to children from low-income families and children with disabilities.
Of all Kusto Group’s businesses, why is KazPetrol an important example of your approach?
KazPetrol demonstrates what long-term industrial development actually requires. The company began in 2005 and works across exploration, field development and production. It now develops six fields with reported geological reserves of 28 million tonnes and has undertaken exploration across additional areas. Building the business required far more than drilling wells. The company developed roads, pipelines, electricity networks, processing facilities, pumping stations, laboratories and accommodation across a large and geographically dispersed operating territory.
It’s also worth being clear about the management model. I am not KazPetrol’s day-to-day chief executive. Orazkhan Karsybekov chairs the company, while Yerzhan Tazabekov leads its executive management. Our responsibility at group level is to support them with strategy, capital and governance, not to replace their operational judgement.
Could KazPetrol turn that capability into a standalone technology or services business?
There is a credible opportunity, but it is important not to present an opportunity as an accomplished fact. KazPetrol has developed experience in connecting dispersed wells and facilities, integrating operational data and introducing predictive maintenance into a working oilfield. Other operators, particularly those managing smaller, mature or geographically fragmented assets, may face similar problems.
Turning internal know-how into a commercial product is a separate challenge, though. We’d need to identify precisely what belongs to KazPetrol, what depends on external technology providers and what remains embedded in the experience of individual engineers.
A credible external proposition would require independently verified results, clear intellectual-property arrangements and a team capable of implementing and supporting the system beyond Kazakhstan. The eventual business may not be software alone, it could combine field assessment, systems integration, operational consulting and training.
Kusto also owns Compass petrol stations. What is the ambition for that business, and how do you intend to grow it?
Compass is already a strong business. The ambition is to grow the network carefully across Kazakhstan, strengthening the quality of the sites, the reliability of supply and the customer experience, rather than expanding for its own sake. With the right investment strategy, we also plan to significantly grow the number of our petrol stations to over 50[i] locations in the next 5 years. Growth should follow demand, location logic and operational discipline: better-run stations, stronger local brands where they matter, and closer links between fuel retail and the wider group’s energy activities where that creates real value. As with other Kusto businesses, the test is whether Compass can become a stronger institution, with clear standards and local leadership, not simply a larger footprint on the map.
How should an oil producer position itself as the global energy system changes?
An oil company cannot respond to the energy transition simply by changing its vocabulary. The first responsibility is operational. Producers will increasingly be judged on whether they can measure and reduce emissions, prevent avoidable losses, use associated gas responsibly, protect workers and communities and provide reliable data about their performance.
Technology can help make existing production more efficient and transparent, but companies must be honest about what technology has and has not achieved. The credibility of the industry will depend less on broad commitments and more on measurable performance at the level of individual fields. Demand will not disappear overnight, but the standard expected of producers is changing.
What would success look like for you ten years from now?
Success would mean that Kusto’s companies are stronger institutions and are not dependent on the founder for their daily direction. It would mean that we have further developed leaders who understand their industries, take responsibility and can build the next generation of businesses. It would also mean that knowledge moves more effectively between the countries and sectors in which we operate.
For KazPetrol, success would not be measured only by the number of barrels produced or the reserves under its control. It would also be measured by whether the company’s engineering, technology and operating systems have become valuable in their own right.
Kazakhstan has historically been known as an exporter of natural resources. The greater opportunity is to become an exporter of industrial knowledge, management capability and technology as well.