Operator-investor · Mid-market PE candidate
Buy services businesses.
Run them.
Senior Partner & Majority Shareholder, Tandem Digital — acquired 2018, scaled to ~$25M revenue / 100+ FTE B2B services group via 30+ team integrations on one shared operating platform. Ex-Yandex Direct commercial ops across Russia & CIS. Dubai-based. Open to one PE-backed mid-market platform CEO / Operating Partner mandate over the next 12 months.
$25M
Tandem Digital · Annual Revenue Run-rate
100+
Full-time Employees Integrated
30+
Team / Sub-acquisition Integrations
7 yrs
As CEO before transition to co-CEOs
Track Record
- Acquired control of a 30-FTE Russian performance-marketing services company in 2018.
- Scaled to ~$25M revenue / 100+ FTE through 30+ team and sub-acquisition integrations on a single shared operating platform.
- Built financial controls, value-based pricing, procurement; lifted blended EBITDA margin to top-quartile sector levels.
- Transferred equity stakes to two senior managers in January 2024 — they now run the business as co-CEOs and equity partners. Remain senior partner / majority shareholder / on the board.
- Five years inside Russia's largest tech group. Scaled from Account Manager (2013) to Head of Mass-Customers Accounting Unit (Mar 2015 – Jun 2017), then Head of the Project Office (Dec 2017 – Jun 2018).
- Built commercial operations for Yandex Direct's SMB advertiser base across RU/CIS — 100k+ accounts, billing, reconciliation, account-management workflows.
- Ran performance marketing for Yandex's own consumer services (Taxi, Eats, Lavka) on the same Direct stack — operator and in-house customer simultaneously.
- Buyer-side on the group's agency M&A — sourcing, due diligence, deal structuring, post-close integration of acquired digital agencies into Yandex commercial machine.
What I'm useful for
- Mid-market B2B services rollups where post-close margin is the question, not the entry price.
- Cross-border integration of disparate teams onto one P&L without breaking client retention.
- Lifting gross margin 8–15pp through process redesign and automation layered on existing services — not headcount cuts.
Where I add edge
- Bilingual emerging-markets operator — Russian + English, fluent in RU/CIS and GCC commercial cultures simultaneously.
- Ex-Yandex M&A buyer-side playbook + 30+ Tandem integrations — same skill, two scales.
- Working AI-ops layer (with co-founder Pavel Tarasov, ex-Cian ML) — systems on real businesses, not slides.
What I'm Looking For
One PE-backed mid-market platform CEO / Operating Partner mandate
Next 12 months · UK or GCC · $30–80M EBITDA · B2B services or tech-enabled services · Strict on fit, flexible on geography. Available for full-time CEO seat with management equity, or Operating Partner role across 2–3 portfolio companies.