Anna Stopnevich: Biography, Education, Career, Photos

Anna Stopnevich: A Journey Through Corporate Finance, Technology, and Philanthropy

Anna Stopnevich is a mentor in the sphere of business succession and entrepreneur with extensive experience in corporate finance and private wealth management. Her career spans work in major banks, leadership of international companies, and the creation of her own projects, including charitable ones. Stopnevich Anna also helps high-net-worth families resolve inheritance issues and transfer asset management to the next generation.

Table of Contents: 

Early Years, Education, and the Beginning of Her Career

Anna Stopnevich was born on February 22, 1979, in a Moscow family of entrepreneurs. She did not immediately follow in her parents’ footsteps, as their example showed her that running one’s own business entails great challenges. Her parents divorced when she was 5 years old, but even after that, both continued to make meaningful contributions to her upbringing, shaping her core values, recalls Anna Stopnevich. Biography of her school years includes a passion for subjects such as mathematics and literature. She performed well in other subjects too.

In 1994, after completing 9th grade, Anna Stopnevich enrolled in the Moscow Banking School under the Central Bank of Russia at her mother’s insistence.

In her final year, Anna Stopnevich, biography of whom includes extensive experience with financial institutions, interned in the VIP client services department of one of the capital’s banks. This was a good opportunity to apply her knowledge working with the company’s highest-priority category of clients.

In 1998, Anna Vladimirovna Stopnevich, having graduated from college with honors, entered the State University of Management, specializing in financial management. She studied in the evening program until 2002, combining classes with work at a major bank. After six months of working at the bank, she was already a leading specialist. A year later, she was selected for the institution’s elite development program, as she showed good career prospects.

In 2002, Stopnevich Anna was promoted to head of the department for retail banking services.

Anna Stopnevich recognized the importance of continuous learning to stay updated with modern business processes. Throughout her career, she consistently dedicated significant time to education.

In 2004-2006, Stopnevich Anna pursued a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at the State University of Management, specializing in corporate finance.

In 2009-2010, Anna Stopnevich studied at the Institute of Business and Business Administration at The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, with a specialization as a Director of Economics and Finance.

Stopnevich Anna: Career Development

In 2003, after leaving the bank, Stopnevich Anna briefly worked as a leading treasury specialist at a timber industry holding. Then she followed her supervisor into a company involved in the operational management of a large machinery manufacturing complex. After a short period of time, she already had the status of Deputy Director of the Financial Department there. Together with the team, she managed cash flows of more than 40 enterprises within the holding. Anna  Stopnevich also supervised the division specializing in sales of the plant’s products abroad. This work helped her develop a detailed understanding of export-import contracts and currency control.

In 2006, Stopnevich Anna accepted an invitation from a major holding company to become head of credit and financial management. The company needed to organize the structure of interaction between assets by unifying disparate enterprises into a single system. Anna Stopnevich began creating a centralized treasury while simultaneously overseeing an anti-crisis campaign.

In 2008, at the height of the global economic crisis, Anna Stopnevich joined Merlion Group – at that time a promising Russian IT distributor (and one of the largest today). Taking up the post of Deputy Financial Director, she was responsible for managing the credit portfolio and corporate budget. This experience allowed Stopnevich Anna to develop skills in the international arena. The holding had offices in several countries, including the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland. During her business visits, Stopnevich Anna Vladimirovna interacted with local banks on various issues, which contributed to her professional growth.

At the end of 2010, Anna Stopnevich took a career break, going on her second maternity leave.

In 2012, Anna Stopnevich began working at Moscow Credit Bank as Director of Corporate Business Development. Her knowledge of process automation proved valuable during the bank’s digital transformation. At that time, MCB was expanding its product portfolio with a new package of cash management services. This segment was handled by Anna Stopnevich. Biography of the financial expert by that time included extensive treasury experience, which she was able to apply in her new position. Essentially, the bank offered corporate clients tools for effective management of their financial flows to minimize expenses and increase revenues. Additionally, her responsibilities included interaction with corporate clients. Stopnevich Anna facilitated the development of partnership relations.

By 2013, the achievements of Anna Stopnevich were highly valued by management. She was appointed Vice President of Bank Development, entrusted with managing a team of 350 IT specialists. Thus, this stage of the Anna Stopnevich biography is also marked by her deep immersion in banking information technologies.

Under her leadership, MCB formed three self-organized teams based on Agile principles, each responsible for its own area of activity:

• the team for the implementation and support of CRM system for customer relationship management, collecting applications, and tracking interactions and transactions
• the team responsible for automating the issuance of loans to corporate clients
• the mobile banking development team

It was at MCB that the expert successfully combined corporate finance with advanced technologies, which later helped her build the structure of her own fintech companies.

During the period of her work at MCB, Anna Stopnevich, biography of whom is an example of successfully combining career and motherhood, went on her third maternity leave, but took only a few months off.

Creation of Wise Wolves Group

In 2016, a new chapter began in the Anna Stopnevich biography. She moved to Cyprus with her family, ending her activities in Russia. By that time, Stopnevich Anna was already familiar with the specifics of working in the island nation – she had been opening family offices there since 2005. These are specialized structures engaged in managing the finances and assets of wealthy families. Their main goal is to preserve and multiply capital for future generations.

In October 2016, Anna Stopnevich, together with a partner, created Wise Wolves Group (WWG), which received brokerage, payment, and fiduciary licenses. It provides comprehensive business services, including access to financial markets, tax planning consulting, and management of settlement accounts. The main clients are European organizations from various industries, financial institutions, and high-net-worth individuals.

As a co-founder of WWG, Anna Stopnevich deepened her knowledge of EU legislation, regulation, and licensing, and became interested in private wealth management. She personally went through many of the processes that she later consulted clients on.

By 2018, the company had a staff of about fifty employees worldwide and the organization had its own mobile application.

In 2020, Stopnevich Anna transferred the management of the business to her partners.

Anna Stopnevich: Business Mentor

Since 2019, Anna Stopnevich has been a mentor and advisor in matters of wealth preservation and business succession.

She was first introduced to business coaching while working at MCB, after her appointment as Vice President. Faced with the need to lead a large staff of IT specialists, Stopnevich Anna underwent a year of coaching training at the suggestion of the bank’s management. During this time, she mastered the Agile methodology, the Kanban management method, and received a Product Owner certification from Scrum.org.

Anna Stopnevich, biography of whom includes numerous leadership positions, applied this knowledge to improve project management processes, delegating more responsibility to the team and optimizing interaction between company structures.

From 2018 to 2020, while simultaneously managing the company, Stopnevich Anna underwent training in mentoring and business coaching at several organizations.

In April 2021, together with a partner, Anna Stopnevich launched the Whistle.expert project in Russia, whose team worked on creating a marketplace connecting entrepreneurs with coaches. Over 3 years, the platform united 450 specialists and 30 schools and associations, and began offering services to corporate clients.

Creation of VertexA

In 2021, Stopnevich Anna moved from England, where she had been living for 3 years, to Switzerland. She had long been interested in this country’s financial system. In the same year, Stopnevich Anna founded VertexA AG and applied for a local asset management license, which she was granted in 2022.

The structure’s activities were divided into 3 key areas:

• The first area is assistance in organizing and optimizing corporate financial management processes. Stopnevich Anna characterizes this aspect of work primarily as consulting, covering a wide range of issues, from implementing automated solutions and setting up management reporting to collecting and analyzing data necessary for strategic decision-making. Additionally, specialists at VertexA AG, founded by Anna Stopnevich, provide support in business structuring, including assistance in opening bank accounts and organizing trade finance.
• The second area is family offices based on the principle of those that Stopnevich Anna previously opened in Cyprus. This activity is aimed at so-called global families whose members live in different countries. The team of Stopnevich Anna helps them resolve issues related to tax residency, relocation, residence permits, and real estate acquisition.
• The third area is the direct management of client assets.

According to Anna Stopnevich, it is important to work at the intersection of investment and social and human capital.

Currently, company management has been transferred to partners, while Stopnevich Anna is developing new projects.

Anna Stopnevich: Charity and Current Activities

In the beginning of 2024, the process of establishing a new company, Antaras Group, was launched. It will primarily work in two directions: corporate finance and inheritance matters, supporting wealthy families in business succession and capital inheritance issues. The second includes an already partially functioning project – a modular program for heirs, which Stopnevich Anna is personally working on. It is designed to connect the successors and their parents at an early stage and will include training and the formation of a “web of competencies.”

Antaras’s core company values reflect its identity as an innovative organization. Operating under four key principles – thinking outside the box, flexibility, creativity, and transparency – the company emphasizes unconventional problem-solving and adaptable business strategies. These values shape how Antaras approaches client relationships, combining innovative thinking with open communication. Its commitment to creative approaches and flexible response to customer needs stems directly from these foundational values, demonstrating a modern business philosophy that prioritizes both innovation and reliability.

In April 2024, Anna Stopnevich, in collaboration with a company from Kazakhstan and partners from Cyprus, England, and Switzerland, organized a conference on the transmission of family valuables and inheritance issues, gathering more than 50 families. One of the key conclusions was the necessity for the early identification and development of heirs’ strengths, and in some cases, refusing to involve them in certain areas of work if their talents lie elsewhere.

On September 19, 2024, the presentation of the Bbuddy project, an innovative mobile application developed for experts by Anna Stopnevich’s team, took place. The app is an online office for experts. It automates all administrative work from scheduling meetings and sending reminders to managing client data and generating reports. The active implementation of artificial intelligence in Bbuddy reflects the digitalization trend, intensified by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The development of the project began in 2022, with the company’s headquarters located in Cyprus.

The digital avatar system emphasizes operational efficiency by providing instant access to a comprehensive knowledge base that can be customized for each expert’s needs. This AI-powered solution works continuously around the clock, focusing on freeing up the expert’s time from routine tasks through smart delegation. Looking ahead, Bbuddy’s development roadmap includes significant milestones, with plans to evolve into a personal online secretary by December 2024, followed by the implementation of expert development tracking and supervision features in 2025, ultimately aiming to incorporate advanced AI technologies that will enable seamless multilingual communication capabilities by 2026.

Charity is another important part of the Anna Stopnevich biography. In 2016, together with a partner, she established the Together Forever charitable foundation, aimed at providing medical assistance to children from CIS countries abroad. The organization has collaborated with clinics in several European countries, including a unique rehabilitation center for children with cerebral palsy in Cyprus. The foundation not only attracted funds from major donors but also organized cultural events to support its activities. This experience allowed Stopnevich Anna to study the principles of fundraising and charity more deeply before she left the project in 2020.

Throughout her career, Anna Stopnevich developed deep expertise in corporate finance, business structuring, and wealth management, while building significant experience in technology integration and process automation. Her work with international companies and creation of several successful ventures resulted in innovative solutions for financial management and business succession. Her practical knowledge of European markets and regulatory frameworks, combined with leadership and mentoring skills, enabled her to effectively support global families and businesses in managing and transferring wealth across generations. The combination of financial expertise and technological understanding has consistently informed her approach to creating new business solutions. Her ongoing focus on education and adaptation to changing market conditions has allowed her to maintain relevance in the dynamic financial sector while developing new projects.

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