Maksat Bagitovich Idenov, born in 1967, graduated from the Al-Farabi Kazakh State University in 1992 in the speciality "jurisprudence" abd in 2001 from Harvard Business School in Boston (USA) (master’s program on preparation of managerial personne ).

M. Idenov started his professional work in 1992 in state holding company “Munaygas” as a senior legal adviser. In 1993, he transferred to the Ministry of oil and gas industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the post of the assistant to the minister.

From 1995 to 1999, M. Idenov worked as a deputy head of the energy department in European and Central Asian countries in the International Bank of Reconstruction (Washington, USA).

M. Idenov has a wide experience of work in public service. From 1999 to 2004, he held a post of the adviser of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Caspian energy and export oil-and-gas pipelines. In this post, he supervised issues of the legal status of the Caspian Sea and other oil-and-gas projects.

In 2004, M. Idenov transferred to international oil-and-gas company Shell where he was a regional vice-president in charge of strategic and commercial development in the countries of the Middle East, Southern Asia and Caspian region.

He has a number of monographs on international law.