The Chamber is guided by a diverse Board of Directors, elected by the membership at large at each Annual General Meeting, that meets monthly to review operations and policy, discuss important trends and changes in Kazakhstan's investment and trade environment, and set new directions for the Chamber. They are supported by the AmCham Secretariat, which coordinates the day-to-day operations of the Chamber.

 

Kenneth Mack

President

Managing Partner, Chadbourne & Parke LLP

Kenneth Mack is Managing Partner of the Chadbourne & Parke law firm's Kazakhstan office. He has extensive experience in transactions involving Kazakhstan, other countries in Central Asia and Russia, in oil and gas, minerals, capital markets, bank finance, project finance, electric energy and telecommunications. He has also been counsel to multinational companies in a variety of investment disputes with private entities in Kazakhstan, and has resided in Kazakhstan for the past 13 years.

Kenneth Mack has been ranked by Legal 500 and Chambers Global (2006 and 2007) for corporate/commercial law and energy and natural resources.
Since 2005 he has served on the American Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan Board of Directors, and was elected AmCham President in March 2006. 

Paul Cohn

Treasurer
Partner, Ernst & Young

Paul is an Assurance Partner based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the Oil and Gas leader for Ernst & Young’s Central Asia and Caucasus practice. Paul holds a Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Law degrees from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He is a member of the Association of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and a member of the Association of the Securities Institute of Australia. Prior to his relocation to Kazakhstan, he worked in Ernst & Young practices in Azerbaijan, Russia and Australia. Paul has 16 years experience providing assurance services to clients in the oil and gas and mining sector including IPO transactions with focus on audit of financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS. Paul has also worked on numerous private equity placements and debt offerings with clients in the resources sector in Kazakhstan.

Tomas Bravenec

Secretary

Senior Banker, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Resident Office in Almaty

Tomas Bravenec was born in 1967 in the Czech Republic. He graduated from The Economics University in Berlin (1985-89) and speaks English, German, Russian and Mongolian, in addition to his mother tongue, Czech. Since graduation, Tomas has worked in a variety of corporate and commercial banking positions with leading banks in Austria and later in the Czech Republic (GiroCredit Vienna, Creditanstalt, BankAustria-Creditanstalt Prague). In December 2001 he was hired by Citibank Prague with responsibility for Structured Trade Finance and later on for Strategy and Planning for Corporate Banking in Central Europe. In March 2005 Tomas Bravenec was assigned to Kazakhstan as GTS Country Head at Citibank in Almaty with responsibility for Global Transaction Services (cash management, payment systems & electronic banking, trade finance and services, securities and fund services as well as customer service) and Commercial Banking for all global/international customers and selected local clients of Citi in Kazakhstan.  In November 2007 Tomas joined the EBRD Resident Office in Almaty as Senior Banker with responsibility for the Corporate Sector, including GI, telecommunications, natural resources, agribusiness and property.

Michael Carter

Visor Capital, CEO

Michael Carter is the CEO of Visor Capital , the leading locally-based investment bank.  Visor Capital has a corporate finance team that has been involved in many landmark transactions over the past five years for both domestic and international clients. The brokerage arm has operations both in Almaty and London.  Visor Capital is actively involved in lobbying and advising Government institutions to improve the investment environment for domestic and international investors.

Michael Carter joined Visor Capital’s management team as Head of Research in 2007, and became CEO in October 2008.   Prior to moving to Almaty, Michael worked for four years at ING Bank in Milan as Head of Italian Equities.  Previously he was with UBS for six years in both Milan and London in equity research. Before entering the investment business, Michael was a Consultant at Bain & Company in Milan, and also worked for a private equity fund in the US focused on Oil service and Oil & Gas.
Michael holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a BA from U.C. Berkeley.

Walter Daniel

Director of Legal Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Walter Daniel is an American citizen (originally from Raleigh, NC) and the Director of Legal Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Almaty. Walter is a member of the Texas Bar and is listed on the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales (non-practicing status); he has extensive experience with oil and gas and corporate transactional work. Before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers, Walter was a Partner in the Almaty office of the international law firm of White & Case. He has also worked for Occidental Petroleum Corporation as legal counsel in Dubai, UAE and legal manager in Tripoli, Libya. Walter started his career at a major US law firm, working in Moscow, Russia and Houston, Texas.  He graduated from Duke University (B.A.), University of Texas School of Law (J.D.), and the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Master of Law).  Walter speaks English and Russian.

 

Osman Kazdal

Coca-Cola Almaty, General Manager

Osman Kazdal was appointed General Manager of Coca-Cola Almaty Bottlers in March 2010. He joined Coca-Cola in 1990 as Sales Supervisor, working on all levels and functions in sales management. Between 1991-1995 he established inner city distributors and worked on their alignment with Coca-Cola business strategies as Distributor Area Sales Manager. In 1995, he was promoted to Sales Manager in Turkey’s East Region, and in 1997, he was appointed Market Development Manager for Turkey. Between 1998-2000, Osman served as European Sales Center Manager.  After working for Turcas Petrol for 5 years as Marketing Services Manager, Osman re-joined Coca-Cola as Marmara Region General Sales Manager in 2006.

Osman Kazdal holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Uludağ University and a master’s degree in business management from Marmara University.  He serves on the board of KATIAD, Kazakhstan’s Turkish business association.

Tim Miller

Tengizchevroil, General Director

Tim Miller was appointed General Director of Tengizchevroil (TCO) October 1, 2010.  TCO is a Kazakhstani joint venture between Chevron, KazMunaiGas, Exxon and LukArco which performs oil and gas exploration and production with a daily production capacity of 75,000 metric tonnes (600,000 barrels) of crude oil.  As of year-end 2010, TCO contributions to Kazakhstan exceeded $45.4 billion from royalties and other payments.
Prior to leading TCO, Miller held managerial positions of increasing scope and responsibility over his 30-year career at Chevron Corporation. Most recently, he served as the Senior Vice President for Chevron Indonesia, where he oversaw operation of onshore terminals and offshore operations.  Previously, Miller held the positions of Chevron country manager in Brazil; assistant to the president for Saudi Arabian Texaco in Kuwait; and operations manager in New Mexico.  Miller began his career with Texaco Exploration and Production in 1981.
Tim Miller holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1982 from Texas Tech University.

 

Mark Pothast

General Manager, Nestle Eurasia

Mark Pothast was appointed General Manager of Nestle Eurasia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbijan) in October 2010.  He previously served as Sales Director for Nestle Russia between April 2006 – October 2010, responsible for sales of over $1.5 Billion, and over 3,500 sales personnel.  Between January 2004-April 2006, Mark was Regional Director of Cereal Partners Worldwide, a joint venture between Nestle and General Mills selling breakfast cereals outside of North America. With responsibility for Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia, he headed the tenth largest global market for CPW.
Mark served as Sales Director Nestle Russia January 2002 – April 2004, National Sales Manager for the Nestle Grocery Division February 1998 – January 2002, and National Sales Manager for Johnson & Johnson Russia November 1994 –February 1998 as part of the Russia entry team.  Between 1983-1994 he worked for Procter and Gamble United States

in various sales positions of increasing responsibility.

 

Colette Cohen

President, Caspian Region, ConocoPhillips

Colette Cohen is President Caspian region for ConocoPhillips, appointed in November 2009.  She began her career with BP in 1991, working offshore in the North Sea in production engineering. She worked as an operational reservoir engineer with BP and with Conoco in the Southern North Sea Gas basin, then joined Phillips Petroleum in Norway in 1998 to manage multidiscipline field evaluation and development project teams in the UK, Norway and France. Colette returned to operations in 2003 as manager of the North Sea well intervention and completions group.  She served as Ekofisk 2/4M asset manager in Norway before moving to Houston to serve as manager of technology development in August 2005.   In August 2008 she took on the position of development manager in the L48 Gulf Coast region. 

Colette earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Queens University in Belfast in 1991 and an MBA in project management and economics from Ceram University in France in 2001. She is a certified senior project manager and a member of both the society of Petroleum Engineers and the Royal Society of Chemistry.