In 1980, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Ivanovo State University. Mints has a PhD in technical sciences and is an associate professor of higher mathematics.

Between 1983 and 1990, he worked at the Ivanovo Textile Institute.

Between 1987 and 1990, he worked in a Youth Center for Scientific Creativity where he earned his first capital.

Between 1990 and 1994, he was vice mayor of Ivanovo and chaired the city property management committee (CPMC).

Between 1996 and 2000, he was the head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Issues of Local Governance and Secretary of the Council for Local Government in the Russian Federation, chaired by the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

Between 2001 and 2003, he was the general director of REN TV.

Between 2004 and 2013, he was chairman, and between 2012 and 2013, he was president of Otkritie Financial Corporation.

In 2004, he founded the O1 Group investment company which owns and manages assets in real estate and financial sectors.

In 2010, he founded the investment company O1 Properties for managing real estate assets. At the end of 2017, O1 Properties was the 6th largest owner of commercial real estate in Russia.

In 2013, Mints ceased to be a shareholder of the Otkritie Financial Corporation, selling his shares to other partners.

In 2013, the O1 Group began acquiring pension business assets and until the middle of 2017 concluded deals to purchase NPF Telecom-Soyuz, NPF Stalfond, NPF Blagosostoyanie OPS, NPF Uralsib, NPF Obrazovaniye, NPF Our Future, NPF Socialnoe Razvitie.

Between 2014 and 2015, he acquired shares in the Austrian companies CA Immo and Immofinanz. CA Immo owns and manages commercial property in Austria, Germany and Eastern Europe.

In 2014, the Miloserdiye awards ceremony took place to honour public figures for their commitment to humanitarian values, and Mints became the first recipient.

In September 2014, Mints facilitated the installation in Moscow of a sculptural and spatial composition by the Russian sculptor and academician Georgy Frangulyan adjacent to the White Square business center.

In 2015, Mints became a supporter and sponsor of the Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges, named in his honour, in collaboration with Tel Aviv University.

In May 2015, Mints, as founder of the Museum of Russian Impressionism, won the Prize named after Yekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, nominated in the “Patron of the Arts” category.

As a result, in 2016 the Future Financial Group, one of the largest pension asset managers in Russia, was established. The Group manages several leading funds in the compulsory and non-state pension sector, including NPF Future, NPF Telecom-Soyuz and NPF Obrazovaniye.

In October 2016, the Future Financial Group held a public offering (IPO) of ordinary shares of FG Future on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

Mints plays chess and tennis. Since 2001, he collects Russian paintings and graphics, mainly works by painters from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. His collection includes works by Serov, Korovin, Kustodiev, Konchalovsky, Polenov, Pimenov, Gerasimov. Based on his collection, Mints created the private Museum of Russian Impressionism in Moscow in the building of the former confectionery factory “Bolshevik”. The Museum that was opened to the public in May 2016. The construction of the exhibition building at the Bolshevik site, based on a design by John McAslan + Partners, cost $16.5 million.

Mints is one of many “Russian oligarchs” named in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.

In March 2017, Forbes estimated Boris Mints’ wealth at over £1 billion.

In 2017, Otkritie FC Bank collapsed as did two others in a group known as the Moscow banking circle. They required a bail-out by private banks and the Central Bank of Russia. The Otkritie bailout required over $8 billion. In July 2019, the central bank sued Otkritie’s former owners and senior executives. Although Mints had sold his shares in the bank in 2013, he allegedly still had a relationship with Otkritie. The central bank alleged that Mints’ company, O1, sold bonds to the banks as a “fraudulent scheme” to pay off its debt just days before the collapse, according to a Financial Times report. An earlier report in February 2019 had stated that the banks were alleged to have sustained “losses from purchasing large amounts of O1 and Otkritie Holding assets”.

In September 2018, Boris Mints sold O1 Properties and the Future Financial Group (includes NPF Future).

In June 2018, Russia petitioned the High court in the UK to freeze £470 million of Mints’ assets, including a mansion in Perthshire, Scotland, known as the Tower of Lethendy. The court agreed only to an injunction prohibiting Minsk and his three sons from disposing of assets, including the mansion. (The Mints had moved to London, UK in spring 2018.)