Goga Ashkenazi is a Kazakh-Russian businesswoman and socialite.
Background
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.
Education
She first attended Buckswood Grange School in East Sussex followed by Stowe School, but was rusticated after being caught kissing a boy.
Career
Since 2012, she has been head of the fashion label Vionnet, based in Milan. She has a sister, Meruert, who is 10 years older. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, her family moved back to Kazakhstan.
She then attended Rugby School, earning five A levels.
She studied modern history and economics at Somerville College, Oxford. After leaving Oxford, Ashkenazi worked at investment banking firms, including Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley in London and Algemene Bank Nederland AMRO in Hong Kong.
The company constructs compressor stations for gas pipelines and tunnelling operations for utility networks, gas turbine and diesel plants. Ashkenazi took over the Vionnet in 2012.
She says she spent a year in Italian studying art, design, fashion and the Italian language.
Ashkenazi is also on the board of Ivanhoe Mining Group.