Here I am today - 4 January, 2000 — in charge of the most aspiring organization (not the most impartial view, of course) working in one of the most challenging sectors in Mongolia — banking and finance (everyone accepts that, however). I have a settled family life, a loving wife and a beautiful son — expecting the second. What brought me here? I use this opportunity to stop, have a breath and look back.
I was born in 1973 to a family of a young couple - car mechanic and garage bookkeeper-accountant. I spent my childhood during the time when it was tough to retain a free spirit: praise this man, respect this lady, do not talk, do not think differently, and do not stand out from the crowd. Sometimes, even, do not move fast and speak loudly.
Nevertheless, I think I managed to keep and develop my individuality.
I was sixteen when I went with my father to support young people gathering on the squares and demanding the government to change. Democratic revolution. Did not miss a bit of it ever since.
1991 was the year that determined ' the course of my professional development - I enrolled in the new Stock Exchange courses and later was accepted to work for the Trading Department of the MSE as one of its first employees. A year passed. In the meantime, my family grasped the golden opportunity that new freedoms were opening to Mongolians. We became quite successful in the merchandize trading between China and Russia. I quit the MSE to help. After one year of this business my parents and me decided that it was about the time to continue my education.
Budapest, Hungary is the place that had a big impact on my life: I spent almost 8 years of my life there. First with my parents when my father was appointed to be embassy driver and then as a student -1 met my future wife in Budapest as well.
The first heavy blow in my life happened to me in 1993, when I was having my first semester examinations -my father died of liver cancer and left us all alone. According to my Mongolian belief I had to officially head the family - my mother and two younger brothers and my grandmother. My mother's courage during four long years of my university studies is worth praising in poems. She managed, all by herself, not only to keep me in school but also sustained a decent life for the rest of the family.
On my return to Mongolia I was hired by the Central Bank of Mongolia, where I was able to quickly get myself into the most challenging work that has been going on — bank privatization, restructuring, formulation of new policies for sound bank operations, training of banking specialists, etc. The language skills that I possess, of course, played a main role in my professional growth. It was also in the Central Bank that I came to realize the importance of professional relationships with different people, value of information and networking - synergy.
In the fall of 1997 a group of young professionals came together under my leadership and founded one of the earliest savings and loan cooperatives known today under the name C.Y.D.A.N. (Coalition of Youth for Development and Networking) that specifically targets to meet its members' demand for credit and stressing importance of savings. In August 1998 I was honored to become the first employee of X.A.C. that would later implement the MicroStart - Mongolia Project. It is suffice to say for now that X.A.C. has laid an economic and legal groundwork for the emerging sector to help out the not so well-off in Mongolia.
Ganhuyag Chuluun Undergraduate Business Administration'97
