Goga Ashkenazi
Goga Ashkenazi (born Gaukhar Yerkinovna Berkalieva; Template:Lang-ru, Template:Lang-kz; 1 February 1980) is a Kazakh-Russian businesswoman and socialite. She is the founder and CEO of MunaiGaz Engineering Group, a Kazakh oil and gas conglomerate. Since 2012, she has been head of the fashion label Vionnet, based in Milan.<ref name="nymag">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="wmag2014">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="dm2010">Template:Cite news</ref>
Early life and education
Ashkenazi was born in the Zhambyl Oblast, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. She grew up in Moscow, where her father, engineer Yerkin Berkaliev, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party under Mikhail Gorbachev. Her mother, Saule, has degrees in both engineering and medicine. She has a sister, Meruert, who is 10 years older.<ref name="times2013">Template:Cite news</ref>
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, her family moved back to Kazakhstan. Eager for their daughter to get a competitive education, her parents sent the 12-year-old Goga to boarding school in England.<ref name="nymag"/> She first attended Buckswood Grange School in East Sussex followed by Stowe School, but was rusticated after being caught kissing a boy.<ref name="standard2010"/><ref name="times2013"/> She then attended Rugby School, earning five A levels. She studied modern history and economics at Somerville College, Oxford.<ref name="times2013"/>
Career
After leaving Oxford, Ashkenazi worked at investment banking firms, including Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley in London and ABN AMRO in Hong Kong.<ref name="times2013"/>
In 2003, Ashkenazi founded the MunaiGaz Engineering Group with her sister, Meruert.<ref name="standard2010"/> The company constructs compressor stations for gas pipelines and tunneling operations for utility networks, gas turbine and diesel plants.
Ashkenazi took over Vionnet in 2012. She says she spent a year in Italy studying art, design, fashion and the Italian language.<ref name="harpers">Template:Cite news</ref>
Ashkenazi is also on the board of Ivanhoe Mining Group.<ref name="standard2010"/>
Personal life
At age 23, she met and married American Stefan Ashkenazy, whose father Severyn Ashkenazy founded the L'Ermitage Hotel Group.<ref name="times2013"/> The couple separated in 2004 and divorced in 2007, but she retained his last name, albeit with a different spelling due to a typo on her Russian passport. Her parents are both sworn atheists as members of the Communist Party, but her father is of Muslim background and Goga is Jewish through her maternal grandmother. Halachically Jewish, Goga notes she did not need to convert to marry Ashkenazy in a Jewish ceremony. She also says that in her purse she carries a page from a 1,200-year-old Torah.<ref name="nymag"/>
Ashkenazi had an extramarital affair with billionaire Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan.<ref name="standard2010"/><ref name="ft2013">Template:Cite news</ref> She and Kulibayev have two sons: Adam, born in 2007 and Alan, born in 2012. She divides her time between Milan, where she works on Vionnet, and London, where her children live.<ref name="nymag"/><ref name="times2013"/>
She is close friends with Prince Andrew, Duke of York.<ref name="standard2010"/><ref name="times2013"/><ref name="dm2010"/>
Her first name, Gaukhar, means diamond in Kazakh, while her sister Meruert's name means pearl.<ref name="standard2010"/>
