Mikhail Maratovich Fridman is a Ukrainian-born, Russian–Israeli tycoon. He is one of the co-founders of Alfa-Group, a multinational Russian conglomerate. According to Forbes, he was the second-richest Russian as of 2013, moving down to ninth-richest Russian in 2023. In May 2017, he was also ranked as Russia's most important businessman by bne IntelliNews. In February 2024, Fridman had a net worth of $13.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Alfa-Bank JSC is the largest of the private banks in Russia. It was founded in 1990 by Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, who remains the controlling owner. Headquartered in Moscow, it operates in seven countries, providing financial services to 22 million active corporate customers and over 1 million active retail clients as of 2021. On 1 March 2022, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven left the bank's board of directors after coming under EU sanctions imposed in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. For the same reason, the bank has been sanctioned by US and EU authorities beginning in February 2022 and 2023, respectively.