Andre Kozitsyn is the General Director of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMCC) and he has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion as of March 2013. Born Andrei Anatolyevich Kozitsyn on June 9, 1960 in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk, Russia, he holds a degree in engineering from the Ural Polytechnic Institute.

According to Forbes, Kozitsyn is the 85th richest person in Russia and 1175th in the world with his estimated net worth of $1.2 billion. He gained his net worth when he went to work as a mechanic in 1979 for Uralelectromed. The company alter became the main factory of UMCC where he served as the general director from 1995 to 2002. Aside from mining and metals, UMCC also has interests in managing agricultural, construction, and telecom companies in the Urals. It won over Norilsk Nickel in May 2012 to earn the right to develop the third biggest copper and nickel field in Russia located in Voronezh oblast. The firm still plans to spend more than $2 billion in building an ore-processing plant in the area.

Andrei Kozitsyn is the closest business partner of fellow billionaire Iskander Makhmudov who has helped him build holdings in Urals mining and metallurgy. After large opposition demonstration in Moscow, on January 30, 2012, more than 1000 UMCC employees demonstrated in Ekaterinburg in support of Vladimir Putin.