Business
Yusif Jabbarov's Chairman Era: NEQSOL Bets on Subsea Cables and Mining as CEO Hands Over
June 7, 2026
5
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One month after Kirill Rubinski took the chief executive seat at NEQSOL Holding, the man who held the role for eight years has settled into a different question. As Chairman of the Board, Yusif Jabbarov is no longer running the day-to-day across the group's eleven countries of operations. He is steering the strategic envelope — and two of the largest bets defining that envelope, the Kardesa submarine cable and the entry into critical minerals, both carry his fingerprints.
From operator to overseer
Jabbarov joined NEQSOL in 2013 as Deputy General Manager and CFO of Nobel Energy. He became CEO in 2018, served until May 1 of this year, and now sits as Chairman. Under his executive tenure the holding grew more than fourfold, expanded from a regional energy and telecoms group into a global investment company headquartered in Amsterdam, and pushed into mining with the $96 million acquisition of Ukrainian titanium producer UMCC. The Taraggi Medal, awarded by Azerbaijan's head of state in 2023, formalised what was already visible in the group's accounts.
The May 1 handover to Rubinski was framed by NEQSOL as a deliberate separation of architect from operator. Jabbarov set the multi-sector trajectory; Rubinski's mandate is to integrate, accelerate digital transformation, tighten governance, and pursue international markets. In a Chairman's seat, Jabbarov retains the strategic vote without owning daily execution.
Kardesa: a Black Sea bet
The most concrete signal of where Jabbarov wants NEQSOL to go is the Kardesa Submarine Cable System, a more than €100 million subsea project being built by Vodafone Ukraine — a NEQSOL subsidiary — together with Vodafone Group. The cable will link Bulgaria, Türkiye, Georgia, and Ukraine across the Black Sea floor, with first landing scheduled for Bulgaria in 2027.
Kardesa sits alongside the Trans-Caspian Cable Line being built by AzerTelecom, NEQSOL's Azerbaijani backbone operator, in partnership with Kazakhtelecom. Together the two projects make NEQSOL one of the more aggressive bets on physical-layer connectivity between Europe and Asia outside of state-led carriers. Submarine cables now carry an estimated 97 to 98 percent of global internet traffic, and Jabbarov has been explicit about why the company is choosing infrastructure that takes years to recoup over higher-margin telecom services: it is the layer that decides who routes the traffic, not just who sells access to it.
Mining, governance, and a Rome MoU
The second visible pillar is critical minerals. The UMCC titanium acquisition gave NEQSOL a foothold in an industry that Western capitals have spent the past three years trying to de-risk from Chinese supply chains. Jabbarov has discussed UMCC as a strategic entry rather than a one-off deal, and NEQSOL's presence at the 2026 Future Minerals Forum signalled the holding intends to scale that position.
The Chairman role has also coincided with deeper institutional alignment. In recent months NEQSOL joined ICC Netherlands, the Dutch national committee of the International Chamber of Commerce. At the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Vodafone Ukraine signed a memorandum with Nokia and Finnvera, the Finnish export credit agency, that may unlock up to €30 million in financing for telecom equipment to support digital infrastructure modernisation. These are not headline-grabbing deals individually; collectively they trace a pattern of a holding moving from emerging-markets operator to internationally-credentialed institutional player.
What the Chairman's role tests
The model NEQSOL has chosen — founding executive moves to Chairman, professional CEO takes operations — is well-established in Western corporate governance and comparatively new for Azerbaijan-rooted multinationals. The interesting test will be whether the separation holds under stress. Strategic disagreements between Chairman and CEO are common at this stage of any company's institutionalisation, and how NEQSOL handles them will tell observers more about the group's governance maturity than any of the polished announcements that mark the transition itself.
For now, the signals are constructive. Jabbarov's recent public statements have centred on the megaprojects he wants the holding identified with — submarine cables, critical minerals, regional integration — rather than on day-to-day operational matters. Rubinski's first month has been spent on internal alignment and a Baku townhall setting four-priority direction. The division of labour is recognisable. Whether it holds for the long haul is the story to watch.
