Business success stories often serve as guidelines for aspiring entrepreneurs. The latter see them as an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors and take note of their accurate and timely decisions. The path of the CEO of the TRINFICO Investment Group is a powerful example of consistent pursuit of goals. Oleg Belay’s biography is quite unlike many other success stories.
His first attempts to start a business were successful, but he continued to look for more promising niches. At one point, Oleg chose to shut down the operations of a potentially successful news agency in favor of opening an investment company. It turned out to be the best decision, as TRINFICO eventually became his top-performing business project. The entrepreneur has been building and expanding his investment company for more than 30 years, proving his skills as a highly-efficient manager.
Biography of Oleg Belay
Many experts believe that entrepreneurial qualities are often developed in childhood. Oleg Belay does not disagree with this statement either. The future businessman was raised in a well-educated family. Despite having no entrepreneurs among his relatives, he managed to develop many important qualities in his childhood, which years later helped him build a successful business. These qualities included a sense of responsibility and determination — something that people close to the businessman have always noticed in him.
Childhood and School Years
Belay Oleg Viktorovich was born in Moscow. He graduated from a regular-curriculum secondary school. However, the lack of in-depth training in certain subjects did not prevent the future entrepreneur from making great progress in the exact sciences. Moreover, he was also good at humanities subjects, such as history and literature.
Oleg began working at a young age. Those close to him described him as a responsible and hardworking young man. His friends knew him as a sociable and reliable person with a nimble mind. The future entrepreneur also had other character-defining qualities, such as curiosity, the desire for continuous self-improvement, and reasonable perfectionism.
Education and Interest in Business
After graduating from school, Oleg Belay decided to get a degree in engineering. He considered applying to several universities, including the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, or MIET (the alma mater of his parents). The latter fact did not particularly influence his decision, but the future businessman still chose the MIET.
He became interested in entrepreneurship during his university years. Despite his sincere love for science, Oleg decided against pursuing it as a career. He noted that he wanted to create something of his own and be independent of other people’s opinions and vision. And so, while still a student, he abandoned the idea of becoming a scientist. However, he still successfully graduated from university with a degree in engineering physics.
First Business Projects
During his student years, Oleg was able to gain sufficient management experience to start his own company. He often received offers to participate in various business projects. The young man did not want to work for someone else in the long run, but considered it necessary to gain some management skills. He showed his worth and achieved success in almost every project he participated in. But over time, he decided to focus on his own ideas instead.
First, Oleg Belay tried his hand at journalism. Together with a childhood friend, he opened a news agency that created media materials on financial topics. The agency’s materials quickly gained popularity. Many experts agreed that the project had great potential. However, its founders lost their passion for journalism. At that point, they became interested in investment and decided to start working in this field instead.
The Founding and Later History of the Investment Company
Entrepreneur Oleg Belay had a chance to develop various types of businesses before finding “his” niche. Ultimately, he settled upon the investment sector. Despite the novelty and the many problems of the developing industry, the entrepreneur knew that it had enormous potential.
Founding of TRINFICO
In 1993, Oleg co-founded an investment company, which initially operated as a regular brokerage firm. TRINFICO started with trading vouchers and other securities that were entering the markets. From the very beginning, the company’s owners decided to pursue gradual growth, as they had to work in a highly competitive environment and needed to manage their risks carefully.
When TRINFICO was founded, there were several main factors that hindered business operations in the investment sector, including:
- Changing legislation: the novelty of the field led to constant legal reforms and ever-updating standards.
- Lack of industry self-regulation: organizations that were supposed to enforce internal regulation had yet to be created.
- Tough competitors: experts note that the competition was not always fair either.
- Distrust in financial markets: the target audience was wary of investing their money, mainly due to the novelty of the industry and the country’s transition to a new economic model.
- Crises: these often plunged the industry into chaos and forced dozens of seemingly successful companies to shut down their operations.
To have a chance to survive in the most uncomfortable business environment, a company had to take conscious risks while providing the highest possible level of asset protection. It was crucial to have an effective management system in this situation. According to Oleg Belay, TRINFICO has been prioritizing the interests of its clients and the professionalism of the investment team from the very first days of its existence.
Business Growth and Overcoming Crises
When speaking about the state of the financial industry in the 90s, experts say that the prospects for rapid growth often coexisted in the Russian stock market with the risks of unexpected failures. Each new crisis led to the termination of dozens of businesses. Among them were even major market players, which had previously been demonstrating excellent results and growing their customer bases.
Oleg Belay says that the owners of TRINFICO never sought to forcefully speed up the growth of their business. Momentary leadership could not guarantee that the company would achieve stable progress in the long term. Instead, the managers of the investment group chose to rely on moderate but stable growth. As a result, the company was able to easily recover from the consequences of many crises.
However, even the most stable business could not survive a major financial collapse without losses. In 1998, TRINFICO was forced to scale down its operations due to a sovereign default caused by the collapse of the “GKO pyramid scheme.” However, the company managed to overcome the crisis and maintain the trust of its target audience. The investment group quickly restored and later on even increased its volume of operations.
Consolidation and Latest Results
After surviving the crisis of 1998, TRINFICO continued to grow rapidly. Soon, it began managing the assets of non-governmental pension funds. The company was able to produce great results in this category. After some time, it also began to collaborate with the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation.
In 2013, TRINFICO completed the consolidation procedure. Oleg Belay became its majority shareholder and took over as CEO. The entrepreneur continued to grow his business.
In 2024, the experts of the National Rating Agency upgraded TRINFICO’s non-credit rating to A+|ru.iv|. Their decision was influenced, among other factors, by the following:
- the company has been in the market for more than 30 years;
- it has an experienced investment team;
- it takes an efficient approach to risk assessment;
- the company’s profitability has been steadily growing;
- it has been reducing the revenue concentration on the key clients.
Today, TRINFICO remains one of the largest investment groups in Russia that do not depend on bank and state capital. It managed to grow from an ordinary brokerage firm into a large-scale company with a recognizable brand that has become synonymous with reliability and quality of services in the investment field.
Staying True to the “Green Agenda”
Oleg Belay is an advocate of ESG investing. Over the years, he has been introducing these principles into the business processes of TRINFICO. The entrepreneur also pays great attention to corporate social responsibility and holds a seat on the board of trustees of a large charitable foundation.
TRINFICO Business Strategy and ESG Integration
Sustainable business development has long been a priority not only for Oleg, but also for the entire management team of the investment group. Interestingly, the TRINFICO company was the first AMC in Russia to get an ESG score. And in the following year, it managed to improve it. In 2024, the National Rating Agency confirmed the combined ESG score of the company, assigning a stable outlook to the rating.
Oleg Belay has repeatedly noted that the “green agenda” is, first of all, important for the sustainable and systematic development of the business. But it is also a major part of the company’s social responsibility. TRINFICO impacts the planet and society in many ways through the projects in which it invests. When analyzing investment options, the group’s experts strive to select companies that are known to implement ESG practices as part of their business strategies.
Philanthropy
Oleg Belay dedicates a lot of time to charity work. However, the entrepreneur is convinced that only systematic aid can be truly effective. He evaluates one-time charitable events as less effective and believes that it is much more important to put effort into targeted solutions to specific problems. That said, the businessman considers any contribution valuable and approves of the participation of TRINFICO employees in various charity events.
The entrepreneur himself does not just watch from the sidelines either. To be able to provide meaningful charitable assistance, he started a nonprofit organization called VMESTE SMOZHEM. Later, he joined its board of trustees. Today, the foundation provides support to charities and nonprofits that share its goals, such as fighting poverty. Projects that win grants from the charitable foundation are eventually implemented in different regions of Russia.
