Dinara Kulibaeva (Kazakhstan): Education outreach, not cultural learnings

It’s a country that most westerners have a hard time pointing to on a map, despite the fact that it is five times the size of France. If you’ve heard of it at all, it’s likely down to the film Borat, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, which saw Kazakhstan and its people become a byword for backwardness overnight upon its release in 2006.
Yet, as funny as that movie was, it bears little resemblance to reality, with the former Soviet republic being home to numerous highly educated and highly successful people.

Daughter of, wife of…
This is the case of the middle of ex Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three daughters, Dinara, who has a degree from the Russian Institute of Theatrical Arts and an MBA from the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research.

She married the oligarch Timur Kulibayev in 1990 and today they are responsible for the fortunes of the Almex Holding Company, which owns 65% of Kazakh savings bank Halyk Bank. The couple have numerous other financial and industrial interests in their portfolio, including the operation and maintenance of oil and gas fields and construction.

Though she may be based thousands of miles from Almaty these days, Kulibaeva still invests heavily in educational projects in her homeland

Born in Almaty, Timur Kulibayev has occupied a number of top posts in prominent public natural resources management companies in his native Kazakhstan, and his influence in the oil and gas industry extends far beyond the borders of his central Asian homeland. He was a board member of Gazprom from 2011 to 2022. He is also on Kazakh delegation to the World Petroleum Council.

Together with her husband, Kulibaeva has amassed an impressive collection of residential property everywhere from the shores of Lake Geneva to the skyscrapers of Manhattan.  

Mission to educate 
As to the details of her fortune, when speaking to Swiss paper Bilan, Dinara Kulibaeva demurred, “I have no idea how much I am worth honestly. For me it’s neither a source of pride nor a goal. My ambitions lie elsewhere, my family, my education.” In 2007, she obtained a Phd. in education, with her doctoral thesis being, The methodological foundations of the management of education systems in international schools. 

Four years after moving to Switzerland in 2009, she created the Montes Alti Foundation in Geneva which aims to promote the education of children and young adults locally, with priority given to the in-service training of teachers and young people, innovation and creativity, sport and art. The foundation even ran a conference on the challenges facing educators in the 21st century, in cooperation with the OECD.

Though she may be based thousands of miles from Almaty these days, Kulibaeva still invests heavily in educational projects in her homeland as well, including those of the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation, which strives to promote international standards of education in the central asian country. Via the foundation, Kazakhs can sit the International Baccalaureate examination and follow the Montessori system of child education.