Eduard Viktorovich Ogay is a Kazakhstani businessman and senior executive whose professional life has been connected with the mining and metals industry for more than 25 years. He is a co-owner of Kazakhmys Holding Limited. Having worked his way from a loader at Almaty’s Central Department Store to a key figure at Kazakhmys, the country’s largest copper producer, Ogay is now considered one of Kazakhstan’s prominent and influential business figures. Eduard Ogay’s biography is therefore closely tied to the development of the country’s modern mining industry.
Early years, childhood and school
Eduard Ogay was born on October 18, 1969, in Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, into a family of ethnic Koreans in Kazakhstan. His great-grandparents had been resettled from the Russian Far East, and the family’s connection with earlier generations was eventually lost. Today, the businessman is trying to reconstruct his family history through archival records.
His parents divorced when Eduard was four, and he was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. He became accustomed to working from an early age.
By fifth grade, Ogay was regularly helping his grandparents with agricultural work in onion fields. In seventh grade, he took a part-time job as a loader at Alma-Ata’s Central Department Store. Eduard Ogay considers this the first profession in his working life. Shifts in the metal cookware department earned him 70-80 rubles a month, a considerable amount for a teenager at the time.
Military service and education
Three months after finishing school, Eduard Ogay entered military service. He served in the city of Vladimir in a tank regiment of the chemical defense forces and reached the rank of starshina, the highest enlisted rank available to conscripts.
Ogay has described the army as a place where one truly becomes a man. He also says military service gave him his first hard lessons in life and laid the foundations for the discipline, order, and sense of responsibility that would later shape Eduard Ogay’s career.
Higher education
After completing his military service, Eduard Ogay returned to work as a loader. At the same time, following a friend’s recommendation, he applied to the Kazakh State Agrarian University to study Economics, Entrepreneurship and Business Management. In 1998, he graduated as an economist-manager.
In 2003-2004 Eduard Ogay completed professional retraining in Open-Pit Mining at Moscow State Mining University.
During the same period, he completed an MBA program in Director of Economy and Finance at the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation.
The businessman recalls that his professors created an individual study program for him and that he had to begin with the fundamentals. His daily schedule included morning classes at the mining university, two hours of English after lunch, and evening MBA classes at the Academy of National Economy under a special program for financial executives.
In 2015, Ogay completed additional specialist training in ore preparation, mineral processing, and hydrometallurgy.
He speaks Kazakh, Korean, and English.
Starting out in business
Eduard Ogay took his first independent steps as a businessman in commerce in Moscow during the collapse of the old Soviet economic system. In the early 1990s, he began working as a broker on the Moscow Commodity Exchange on behalf of the state-owned Moskhlebtorg organization. Exchange trading brought him his first substantial earnings.
According to Ogay, the hardest part was dealing with uncertainty. Early on, he often doubted his own abilities and found motivation in the example of people his age who were closing major deals and becoming millionaires before his eyes.
In 1992, Eduard Ogay launched his own business together with former classmates, investing money he had earned on the exchange. The company followed a straightforward trading model, buying and selling food, appliances, and other goods. His mother, who by then headed Alma-Ata’s first cold-storage facility, provided considerable support with advice and resources.
One of Ogay’s first successful deals involved Polish cognac. Around one million bottles of imported alcohol had arrived in Moscow, and he took the risk of buying a batch of 60,000.
He handled the sales personally. For two months, Ogay and hired drivers delivered the goods across the city. The entire batch was eventually sold, generating a profit of about one million rubles, equivalent at the time to approximately $200,000-300,000.
The 1990s also gave him some of his toughest lessons in entrepreneurship. Business relationships often depended on personal trust, friendships, and reputation, while formal contracts carried considerably less weight than they do today.
Eduard Ogay borrowed money for one project, but his partner proved unreliable, leaving him to repay the debt on his own. With interest running at 5% per month, he effectively had to start again from scratch. The situation was made more difficult by the fact that his first son had recently been born.
Overcoming the crises and financial difficulties of the 1990s gave Eduard Viktorovich Ogay practical experience in risk management and navigating difficult business situations. One such episode became a turning point in his career and opened the way into the mining and metals industry.
Further career
In 1993, these supply transactions brought Ogay into close business contact with Vladimir Kim, who was managing the Kazakhstan-Samsung joint venture. The company exported 30% of Kazakhstan’s copper to Korea under government quotas. This marked the beginning of a long-term partnership that would shape his future career at Kazakhmys.
Ogay bought products and raw materials from Kim for further processing at industrial plants. This cooperation would later become an important part of the Eduard Ogay-Kazakhmys story.
In 1995, the government transferred Zhezkazgantsvetmet to the management of Samsung Deutschland GmbH under the condition of settling its liabilities. Vladimir Kim became managing director, while Ogay arranged essential supplies as an external partner.
From 1996 to 1997, Eduard Ogay served as President of JSC Kazresurs. From 1997 to 2001, he headed Petrokaz LLP.
The formal stage of Eduard Ogay’s career at Kazakhmys began in 2001, when he became Executive Director for Foreign Economic Relations and Marketing.
From August 2006 to March 2016, he oversaw the operating activities of Kazakhmys Corporation LLP as Chairman of the Management Board. During the same period, he also held senior positions within the group’s international structure, Kazakhmys PLC.
From January to August 2006, Ogay served as Director of Corporate Development. From May 2011 to October 2014, he was a member of the Board of Directors.
In November 2014, Eduard Ogay became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kazakhmys Holding LLP.
After stepping down as Chairman of the Management Board in spring 2016, he continued to lead the corporation’s Board of Directors until March 2017.
In August 2019, Eduard Ogay once again became Chairman of the Management Board of Kazakhmys Corporation LLP and remained in the position until December 1, 2022. During this period, Eduard Ogay served as CEO-level head of the company’s operating business, overseeing its day-to-day executive management.
Following the transfer of operational leadership in December 2022, he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kazakhmys Corporation LLP until its sale in December 2025.
His responsibilities also included leadership roles at JSC Kazakhmys Copper. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kazakhmys Copper JSC no later than July 2018, and was re-elected to the position on June 24, 2020.
This long period of executive and board-level leadership forms one of the central chapters in Eduard Ogay’s biography and explains why the names Eduard Ogay and Kazakhmys have been closely associated for more than two decades.
Another episode in Ogay’s professional life was his period in public service in 2005–2006. As Deputy Akim of the East Kazakhstan Region, he was responsible for regional energy security, fuel supplies for power plants, and managing public utility issues.
Eduard Ogay’s social projects
Eduard Ogay systematically supports socially significant projects in Kazakhstan, including initiatives implemented through the Eleos-Meirim public foundation.
Rather than limiting its work to conventional charitable donations, the organization develops facilities on a turnkey basis and then transfers completed projects to the state.
For example, he currently supports the construction of a library in Kyzylorda and a regional oncology center in Taldykorgan.
Foundations established during the Kazakhmys period also continue to operate in Zhezkazgan and Balkhash.
Family
Eduard Ogay is in his second marriage. He has seven children and four grandchildren. His eldest son is 34, while his youngest daughter is ten.
His two eldest children have built independent careers. His son is developing his own business in services and real estate, while his daughter manages a school project in Almaty that was founded by Ogay’s first wife.
