Goga Ashkenazi

Goga Ashkenazi (; born Gauhar Erkınqyzy Berqalieva, ; 1 February 1980) is a Kazakh businesswoman and socialite. She is the founder and CEO of MunaiGaz Engineering Group, a Kazakh oil and gas conglomerate. From 2012 to 2023, she was head of the fashion label Vionnet, based in Milan.

Early life and education Ashkenazi was born in the Zhambyl Oblast, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. She was raised 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. She has a sister, Meruert, who is 10 years older.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, her family returned to Kazakhstan. Eager for their daughter to get a competitive education, her parents sent the 12-year-old Goga to boarding school in England.

Career After leaving Oxford, Ashkenazi worked at investment banking firms, including Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley in London and ABN AMRO in Hong Kong. In April 2023, Vionnet was acquired by ChimHaeres.

Ashkenazi is also on the board of Ivanhoe Mining Group. She and Kulibayev have two sons: Adam, born in 2007 and Alan, born in 2012. She divides her time between Milan, where she works on Vionnet, and London, where her children live.

She is close friends with Prince Andrew, Duke of York, as well as banker Nathaniel Rothschild, real estate developer Nick Candy, Duran Duran band member Nick Rhodes and Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill.

Her first name, Gaukhar, means diamond in Kazakh, while her sister Meruert's name means pearl.