Kirill Rubinski, the Jewish CEO of the Azerbaijani group NEQSOL Holding, has spent much of his career moving between worlds that do not usually sit easily together: Soviet Moscow and Paris, Jewish identity and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan, private equity and strategic infrastructure. 

Now, as the newly appointed CEO of one of the region’s largest conglomerates, he is turning those unlikely crossings into a business strategy.

The Amsterdam-headquartered group spans telecommunications, energy, mining, and construction across 11 countries, serving over 25 million customers and employing more than 15,000 people. Its portfolio includes Vodafone Ukraine, Azerbaijan telecom operators Bakcell and AzerTelecom, Ukraine’s UMCC titanium producer — acquired in one of Ukraine’s most significant wartime privatizations — and Norm, the largest cement producer in the South Caucasus.

“Azerbaijan has only 10 million people, that’s why so much of the business is outside the country,” Rubinski told The Jerusalem Post.

For Israel, the most immediate significance lies in technology. NEQSOL has just completed replacing one of its telecom billing systems with technology from Amdocs, the Israeli-founded telecom software company. The project is expected to be finalized in June 2026.

For Rubinski, the Amdocs partnership is not an isolated procurement decision. It is part of a broader view that Israel can become a more important partner for NEQSOL across telecoms, healthcare, education and digital infrastructure.

"Israel is one of the world centers for technology and all types of pioneering digital innovation," he said. "Not only Azerbaijan, but all the countries in the world have a lot to win working with Israel."

That approach comes against the backdrop of one of Israel's most durable but understated regional relationships. According to Kepler data reported by JNS, Azerbaijan accounted for 46.4% of Israel's crude oil imports in 2025, making it Israel's largest oil supplier by a wide margin and one of its most significant Muslim-world partners. The relationship has remained largely pragmatic and security-driven, built around energy, defense, technology and regional connectivity rather than public diplomacy.

As a Jewish CEO working in a Muslim-majority country, Rubinski said the experience has been less complicated than he expected. "It's something that I expected to be more sensitive, at least palpable. But the Muslim side, like Muslim religion or traditions in Azerbaijan, are much less visible. Azerbaijan feels much more on the western side of the world than Turkey."

The local Chabad rabbi, who has been in Baku for a decade, Rubinski noted, "confirms that it's been extremely easy for him." In the workplace, the separation is clear. "If people want to pray, they can close the door and pray in their own office. There is a space to pray, but nobody will come and pray in the lobby. It's a clear separation between religious and secular life."

He drew an unusually sharp comparison with France, where he lives.

"I feel much safer in Azerbaijan than in France," he said. "The level of aggression against Jews, the level of antisemitism is incomparable between France and Azerbaijan.

“In Azerbaijan, it's something that will never be tolerated. In France, it's absolutely normal practice now."

That sense of practical tolerance, Rubinski said, is also reflected inside NEQSOL. "We have Azerbaijanis, Germans, people from the UK, the US, Turkish, Brits, Spanish, from everywhere. More than 15 nationalities are working in our group. A truly international team."

Rubinski was born in Moscow and moved to Paris at the age of eight, when his father, a scholar and senior Soviet diplomat, was appointed first counselor at the Soviet embassy in France.

His father was among the few Jews to graduate from MGIMO, the elite Soviet institute for international relations, at a time when Jewish enrollment was tightly limited. Rubinski later enrolled at the same institution in 1986, was drafted into the Soviet army, and spent two years in Siberia before completing his studies.

President Ilham Aliyev, who has led Azerbaijan since 2003, was once Rubinski’s professor at MGIMO. "For two years, I was passing exams [for] him."

Rubinski spent a decade in investment banking at Crédit Lyonnais, working on oil and gas deals from Venezuela to Qatar and Russia.

His American team was devastated in the September 11 attacks. "Ninety-two people from my team died," he recalled.

"The whole business collapsed, and I had to rescue it. Instead of moving the practice from the US to Europe, I had to close positions in the United States because there was literally no expertise left."

Rubinski later moved into private equity, completed a $1.2 billion exit in 2012, and spent five years working with Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian-Jewish billionaire and founder of EastOne Group.

More recently, Rubinski managed family office investments, including early exposure to OpenAI and SpaceX. He initially approached NEQSOL as a potential co-investor.

However, the company's sole shareholder and founder Nasib Hasanov, had a different proposal. "He said the company needs a CEO, why don't you come and manage the company for a few years?" Rubinski recalled. "That looked interesting."

For NEQSOL, Israel is becoming part of that international growth map. Beyond Amdocs, Rubinski said that the group was looking at Israeli partners for a healthcare expansion in Azerbaijan, with Hadassah Medical Center among the institutions being considered. 

He also wants to extend NEQSOL Academy — which funds top Azerbaijani students at Western universities and currently partners with Bocconi University in Milan — to Israeli universities.

"I personally know the dean of Tel Aviv University. I've been there many times," he said, adding that the Technion University is also on his list.

Rubinski’s cultural ambitions are more unexpected, but equally specific. "The Batsheva Dance Company that I'm a big fan of, [and] the Tel Aviv Ballet — I would love to bring them to Baku. I would be proud and happy to sponsor it."

The company's most strategically important infrastructure project is the Digital Silk Way, a submarine fiber-optic cable being laid across the Caspian Sea. Implemented together with Kazakhstan's state telecom company, Kazakhtelecom, it aims to connect Central Asia and China to Europe through Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Black Sea, and Bulgaria.

"This will be an alternative internet connection; high-speed broadband for all those countries east of the Caspian, bypassing Russia," Rubinski said.

For countries seeking alternative trade, data, and energy routes after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that bypass matters considerably.

"One of the best assets of the country is its geographical position — being able to service flows, transportation, data, oil and gas, energy," Rubinski said.

"It gives a unique opportunity to be in the middle of world politics, and be somehow an intermediary between countries which don't necessarily have a perfect relationship."

That corridor logic is also pushing NEQSOL toward the wider Middle East. Rubinski said the group was in active discussions with Bahrain, where he recently met with government ministers and the head of the state property fund.

Perhaps the most politically sensitive development is NEQSOL's quiet business engagement with Armenia, after decades of conflict between the two countries.

"A sort of ceasefire — I cannot say peace — was signed," Rubinski said. "And surprisingly, there are real business talks between the two countries."

The head of one NEQSOL industrial group recently traveled to Armenia as part of a business delegation, he said — the first such trip in 35 years of conflict. "I wouldn't say the cooperation is expanding astronomically, but there is a real development there."

For a Jewish executive leading an Azerbaijani-rooted conglomerate with growing ties to Israel, Central Asia and the Gulf, that may be the larger story: not symbolism, and not sentimentality, but infrastructure, capital and security interests moving faster than regional politics.