Sergey Smirnov, Ph.D. (economics) is a deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Center-invest Bank, the biggest regional bank in Southern Russia.
He began his professional career in 2003 when he joined the bank as an economist. Since then, he has held several positions and gained a wide experience
 in corporate and private lending as well as energy-efficiency lending. The Expert RA rating agency ranked Center-invest Bank in 6 th place for the size of its
portfolio of loans for sole traders and small businesses, 13 th place for volume of SME lending in 2015, and 16 th place for size of SME loan portfolio.