Potanin was born in Moscow, in the former USSR, into a high-ranking communist family. In 1978, he attended the faculty of the International economic relations at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), which groomed students for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Upon graduating MGIMO in 1983, he followed in his father’s footsteps and went to work for the FTO “Soyuzpromexport” with the Ministry of Foreign trade of the Soviet Union.

During perestroika, Vladimir Potanin quit the State’s structures of Foreign trade and in 1991 created the private association Interros using his knowledge gathered at Ministry of Foreign trade and his previous professional network. In 1993, Potanin became President of United Export Import Bank.

In 1995, Potanin was instrumental in the creation of the “loans for shares” auctions that became a fundamental pillar of Russia’s post-Soviet economic reform. The auctions allowed the selling-off of Russian firms’ assets at below market prices and are regarded as the founding moment of Russia’s oligarchy. According to the New York Times, the auctions plan is “Regarded today almost universally as an act of colossal criminality.”

Potanin was inspired to develop the Rosa Khutor ski resort in the Mzymta valley near Sochi after skiing with Putin in Austria in 2003. He invested more than $2 billion into the resort after Sochi was picked for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in 2007.

In March 2003, he took charge of the National Council on Corporate Governance (NSKU), whose main goal is to improve the legislative regulations in Russia and to introduce professional and ethical standards of corporate governance in Russian companies. The goal is to boost the reputation and investment appeal of the Russian businesses.

In April 2003, Potanin was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the State Hermitage, the most renowned Russian art museum.

Between 2005 and 2010 Potanin invested $500,000 in starting a leopard breeding initiative in the valley. In 2015 he asked Putin to allow for permits to double the size of the ski resort, an expansion that will threaten the leopard program he contributed to.

In 2007, Potanin split with Prokhorov, citing Prokhorov’s brief detention by French police over soliciting prostitution as the reason and announced the intent to acquire Prokhorov’s Norilsk Nickel assets for a reported $1 billion. Prokhorov offered to sell his 25 percent stake for $15 billion. However, Potanin refused the deal and it never came to pass.

In 2008, Deripaska reached an agreement with Prokhorov for the acquisition of his Norilsk Nickel stake, against Potanin’s wishes. In return, Prokhorov acquired 14 percent of RUSAL.

In March 2009, he sued former business partner Mikhail Prokhorov for $29 million over a property disagreement in Moscow.

As a result, pressure has been mounting on Potanin from Russian president Vladimir Putin to clean up Norilsk Nickel’s operations. In 2010, Putin stated that solving ecological problems in the Norilsk area must be one of the company’s leadership’s main tasks.

This sparked an ownership conflict between Deripaska and Potanin that was halted in 2012, when Roman Abramovich stepped in as a peacemaker by acquiring 6.5 percent of Norilsk and thereby maintaining the balance of power between Deripaska and Potanin. The truce also barred the parties to sell or acquire new stakes. The deal made Potanin CEO of the company, as he owned roughly 30 percent of Norilsk, about 2 percent more than Deripaska.

Potanin’s first marriage was to Natalia Potanina, with whom he has three children. In 2014, Potanin got married a second time, to Ekaterina.

In May 2015 Potatin was named a co-defendant in a case in which state-owned Vneshekonombank (VEB) was looking for damages for losses from the liquidation of Roskhlebprodukt, in which he indirectly owned a stake. In total, VEB sought $68 million in damages from Potanin and others.

The claim was preceded by a smaller claim of $7 billion in 2015, after Potanin had offered a divorce settlement including a monthly allowance of $250,000 as well as real estate in Moscow, London and New York. The claim was struck down in 2016. Natalia argued that Russian law demands that wealth accumulated during a marriage is split evenly between the divorcees.

According to a report published by investigative platform Meduza in 2016, Prokhorov turned to Valentin Yumashev, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s chief of staff, to appeal to president Vladimir Putin. Reportedly, Putin “phoned Potanin in Prokhorov’s presence and chewed him out, saying, ‘It’s dishonest to cheat on partners.'” Prokhorov ultimately decided to sell his 25 percent Norilsk stake to RUSAL’s Oleg Deripaska instead.

In September 2016, the local Daldykan river ran red after a suspected break of a Norilsk Nickel slurry pipe released industrial waste into the water. Norilsk Nickel was subsequently fined an undisclosed amount by the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources [ru] (Rosprirodnadzor).

Potanin became the first major Russian investor to acquire assets in Iran after the sanctions against the country over its missile program were lifted in 2016. Through his investment fund New Winter Capital Partners (NWCP), he bought shares of Swedish firm Pomegranate, which is a shareholder in a number of Iranian internet companies, such as Digikala, the country’s largest online retailer. The investment in Digikala was estimated to be $300 million.

In 2016, Potanin’s charitable organization, the Vladimir Potanin Foundation, donated works of art to be displayed at the Centre Pompidou’s exhibition of Russian and Soviet art along with another 40 donors including Vladimir Semenikhin, the Tsukanov Family Foundation and others. For his efforts, Potanin was awarded the French Legion of Honour later that year.

In 2016, Natalia Potanina filed a $15 billion lawsuit claiming profits of Norilsk Nickel as well as Interros International, in what would have been the world’s largest divorce settlement. A Moscow district court rejected her claim in July 2017, arguing that the lawsuit’s limitation period had expired.

During a meeting with Putin in January 2017, Potanin promised to solve environmental problems by 2023 through the modernization of capacities. Briefing Putin on Norilsk Nickel’s development and performance, Potanin promised to invest $17 billion over a seven-year period on measures to modernize the company’s facilities and reduce pollution from its operations. Potanin said that the company planned to reduce its emissions by 75% as part of its long-term development programme through 2023. In the Norilsk area, emissions were reduced by 30-35% in 2017 alone, according to company data. However, another $2 billion environmental clean-up project is supposedly still outstanding.

In February 2018, Potanin offered to buy 4 percent of Abramovich’s stake. A provisional acquisition agreement was reached in March for Potanin to buy a 2 percent stake in Norilsk from Abramovich. The purchase is not yet officially approved, pending a court ruling in May that will decide whether the acquisition is breaching the 2012 stakeholder agreement. If the purchase is approved, Potanin would own 32.9 percent of Norilsk against Deripaska’s 27.8 percent. In April, Deripaska called off the deal citing sanctions as the reason.[3]

Potanin is a member of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a lobby group that sent Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev a proposal for alternative cryptocurrency regulations in October 2018.

In May 2020, a major oil spill occurred at a power plant owned by Nornickel, flooding rivers with up to 21,000 cubic metres of diesel oil, in what has been described as the second-largest oil spill in modern Russian history.