The head of the international company Freedom Holding Corp., Timur Turlov, is often called the phenomenon of Kazakhstan’s fintech scene - one that has already gone far beyond the country’s borders. Turlov started out in trading at a Russian firm, launched his own brokerage “Freedom Finance” in the middle of the global financial crisis, and managed to grow it into an international corporation listed on Nasdaq with a market capitalization of over $8 billion. Here’s the story of how the businessman built his career, as well as his views on business, family, and Kazakhstan.
Childhood and Early Years
Timur Ruslanovich Turlov was born on November 13, 1987, in Lobnya, a small town in the Moscow region. In later interviews, he recalled that his family lived in poverty: the 1990s were tough, and Timur shared a small room with his mother and several others. All he dreamed about back then was to earn more money. He grew up without a father, while his mother - a scientist - lost nearly everything during the post-Soviet transition.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
“It was like this: my mom tried to plan everything as carefully as possible so that at the end of the month we still had something to eat. It was a really difficult time. I often felt hungry - not literally, no: we rarely had meat on the table, but that was the ’90s. I mean this inner hunger, from constantly lacking things. That hunger turned into a craving - to make money, to find a profession that would eventually pay off,” Turlov said in one of his interviews.
His First Brokerage Account at 15
As a teenager, Turlov paid attention to IT, noticing that people in this growing sector were earning more than in any other field. Around the same time, he became interested in securities trading and, with the help of an older friend, opened his first brokerage account at the age of 15. That necessity soon turned into a profession: still in school, he started working as a trader in the Moscow office of the American investment company World Capital Investments (WCI).
“I came in as an unpaid intern. You had to take an IQ test. I solved it, I think, a little better than average,” Turlov later recalled when asked how someone could get into such a company at 16.
While studying economics and management at university, he went to work at the Russian bank “Utrade.ru,” where he built a platform from scratch that allowed access to American stock exchanges. But in the midst of the 2008 global financial crisis, Turlov left the company and decided to start his own. That’s how the brokerage “Freedom Finance” was born.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
Leaving a Major Bank to Launch a Startup
At first, Freedom Finance was only a brokerage company, but soon a banking arm was added as well. Turlov later admitted that creating a bank from scratch was anything but easy. Still, much of Freedom Finance’s success came from the fact that he had been working in financial institutions since his teenage years and, as it seemed, knew the business inside and out.
“I knew every single operation - accounting, correspondence, risk management, sales, trading, client services, marketing, training clients - practically everything. But Freedom Finance was my own startup, and when I pulled together a team of six people and we tried to replicate what we knew from working in a bank, we actually managed to do it. But we also realized there’s a huge difference between selling services on behalf of a well-known, relatively large bank and doing the same thing as a completely unknown company,” Turlov recalled.
Why Timur Turlov Moved to Kazakhstan
In 2011, Turlov and his family moved to Almaty, shifting focus from the Russian market to the Kazakh one, where he saw far more opportunities. Competing with established Russian banks - which already had capital, reputation, and client bases - seemed almost impossible for Freedom Finance. Plus, Turlov has repeatedly said that he really liked Almaty, and his father originally came from Kazakhstan.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
In Kazakhstan, Turlov’s Freedom Finance quickly became one of the most popular players in the still-developing market. The broker expanded into other Central Asian countries. At the same time, Freedom Bank appeared in Kazakhstan. By 2014, “Freedom” had gone beyond the CIS, and in 2015, Turlov founded the unified Freedom Holding Corp., registered in the United States. Kazakhstan became a priority market, and it was here that new digital services and products were rolled out first.
In 2019, Freedom Holding Corp. became the first company from the CIS to be listed on the American Nasdaq exchange. Since then, Freedom Finance has grown even faster, developing new business lines, rolling out unique digital solutions, and opening more offices around the world. Today, the holding has offices in 22 countries, including the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the CIS. In 2022, Freedom sold its assets in Russia and fully concentrated on Kazakhstan, while Turlov became a citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The company’s headquarters are now in Almaty.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
Freedom Holding Corp. on the Global Market
Timur Turlov’s Freedom Holding Corp. now brings together many different businesses. The corporation has pursued digitalization and the creation of a unified ecosystem, which has made it competitive not only in Kazakhstan, but globally. Today, the holding includes:
- Freedom Finance Global - Kazakhstan operations
- Freedom Bank
- Freedom Broker and the Tradernet trading platform
- Insurance services Freedom Life and Freedom Insurance
- Freedom Pay
- Freedom Mobile
- Freedom Drive
- Freedom Ticketon
- Freedom Telecom
- Freedom Travel
- Freedom Media
- Re:kassa
- Arbuz.kz
- Freedom24 - European operations
The company’s stock has been steadily climbing. FRHC shares hit a record high of $190.22 per share on Nasdaq. Other indicators have also been growing. According to the annual financial report for 2025, published in June, Freedom Holding Corp.’s revenue reached $2.1 billion, up 23% from 2024. Turlov has said that most of the revenue is reinvested.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
Just in 2025 alone, Turlov announced several business milestones. The American fund AlphaDEX (FXO), which invests in promising projects, bought 185,000 shares of Freedom Holding Corp. The holding was added to the Russell 3000 index and received a high rating with a “positive” outlook from S&P Global Ratings. Finally, the story of how Freedom grew from a small Russian brokerage into a major international company with a multibillion-dollar market cap started being taught as a case study to MBA students at Stanford Business School.
“For us, this is not just an achievement. It’s proof that ideas born in Almaty and Astana can be relevant and important anywhere in the world,” the holding’s CEO commented on these developments.
Life Outside Business
Turlov is ranked 471st on Forbes’ global billionaires list. The founder of the holding is married and has six children. He met his wife back in college. In 2009, when Freedom Finance was only a year old and had just started bringing in some profit, their first son, Leon, was born.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
“Leon was born, and less than two years later, we had twins. So it all hit at once: suddenly you’re in a situation where two parents have three little kids, and all of them are crying. Back then, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could cope with six children,” he recalled in an interview.
The founder of Freedom Holding Corp. has repeatedly said that family is extremely important to him, and having many children turned out to be not as frightening as it seemed. In interviews, he even joked that he’d be willing to have more kids. The family also has two German Shepherds and a cat.
Timur Turlov’s Sports Initiatives
Turlov tries to run both his business and his life outside of it responsibly. That doesn’t only mean making big decisions - it’s also about social responsibility. In his case, the focus has been on two very different sports: chess and soccer. His largest initiatives are aimed at children and their development.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
As head of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and the International Federation of Chess Schools, he has been sponsoring championships and tournaments worldwide for several years - from numerous events in Kazakhstan to competitions in New York and Washington, D.C.
ISCF
“This is a special game; it shapes thinking, teaches discipline and decision-making, and helps us see the consequences of our actions. We want as many kids around the world as possible to be able to learn the game of chess,” Turlov said after a school championship organized by Freedom in Washington in August this year.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
Turlov is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Kazakhstan Football Federation, invests in youth soccer through the Freedom QJ League, and recently became head of the Karaganda Regional Football Association.
Courtesy of Timur Turlov’s Facebook
Altogether, the businessman is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in these projects, believing that where there’s big money, there must also be big responsibility.
