Karim Kazimkanovich Masimov was born in Tselinograd city of the Kazakh SSR.
Since September 2016 K. Masimov worked as the Chairman of the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Prior to that, he held the post of the Head of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan since September 2012. He held the posts of the Prime Minister (from January 2007 to September 2012), Vice-Prime Minister (from January 2006 to January 2007) and Minister of Economics and Budget Planning (from April to September 2006), President Assistant on foreign policy issues (from June 2003 to January 2006), Vice-Prime Minister (from November 2001 to June 2003), Minister of Transport and Communications (from August 2000 to November 2001).
In 1990-ies he was the Chairman of the board of a number of major banks, including the Almaty Trade and Financial Bank, Turanbank and the People's Savings Bank of Kazakhstan. Doctor of Economics.
In 1982 Karim Kazhimkanovich finished the Republican Physics and Mathematics Boarding School in Alma-Ata.
In 1985 Masimov K.K. entered the Faculty of Economics and Law of the Peoples' Friendship University named after Patrice Lumumba (RUDN University), where he specialized in learning English and Arabic languages.
In 1988 he graduated from the Peoples' Friendship University and in the same year left for China on intercollegiate exchange, where he studied Chinese at the Beijing Institute of Culture and Languages (1988-1989) and international law at the Law Institute of Wuhan University (1989-1991).
In 1991 Masimov Karim Kazhimkanovich worked as a legal adviser of the Trade Representation of the USSR in the People’s Republic of China.
In 1991-1992 he worked as a head of the department of external relations of the Labor Ministry of the Republic. Later, the official worked in government and commercial structures of Kazakhstan, engaged in trade with China and Hong Kong.
In the period of 1994-1995 Masimov was a managing director of the Kazakh Trade House in Hong Kong.
Since 1995 Karim Kazhimkanovich began to work in the banking sector. At the same time, Masimov K.K. continued to receive education. Having completed the postgraduate training programme in KSAU (Kazan State Agrarian University) in 1998 and the doctoral training programme in the Moscow State Technological Academy in 1999, in the same year he defended his doctoral thesis on the topic "Problems of Formation of the Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Ways of Their Solution (Theory and Practice)". Besides, in 1999 Masimov Karim Kazhimkanovich studied under the programme of top managers at Columbia University in New York.
Masimov Karim Kazhimkanovich was awarded the Kazakhstani Order of Kurmet (2004), the Order of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Leader of the Nation Nursultan Nazarbayev (2010), the medal "Twenty Years of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan" and the Order of Federation of the United Arab Emirates (2010).