 Аfter finishing high school in 1994, Naum entered the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation and graduated in 1999.Being a college undergraduate, he started off as a financial analyst at Cherkizovsky, a major Russian meat processing plant, which was subsequently reorganized into a JSC Group Cherkizovo, Russia's largest producer of meat products.In 2000, Babaev took over as a head of the poultry production business unit in the company's agro-industrial complex and was managing it until 2005, when, due to the merger of the company's agro-industrial and meat processing units, a larger facility was formed, namely CHERKIZOVO Group; Naum was appointed the company's Strategy and Development Director.