Moscow, Russia - March 8, 2011 – Sistema (LSE: SSA), the largest diversified public financial corporation in Russia and the CIS, today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Mikhail Shamolin, the former President and CEO of Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), as President of Sistema. Leonid Melamed, who has been President of Sistema for three years, will continue to serve as a member of Sistema's Board of Directors and Chairman of Russneft.

Biographical Information

Mikhail Shamolin was born in 1970. Mr. Shamolin has served as President and CEO of MTS Group since May 2008. Mikhail Shamolin previously held the position of Vice President and Head of the "MTS Russia" business unit from August 2006. Mr. Shamolin joined MTS in July 2005 as Vice President for Sales and Customer Service, prior to which he worked at Interpipe Corp. (Ukraine) as Managing Director of the Ferroalloys Division from 2004 to 2005, and at McKinsey & Co from 1998 to 2004. Mikhail Shamolin graduated from the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation in 1993, and completed a Finance & Management course at Wharton Business School in 1997.