He is from the family of the Dutch painter Casper Faassen.[17] He studied architecture at the Hague University of Applied Sciences and graduated in 2004.[18][15] On 15 April 2006, he moved to Moscow where he had been a director at Stroytransgaz but left that post to take a top posting in 2007 at Gazprom,[17][15] where he no longer works.[1] He was the deputy chairman of MEF Audit, a Russian consulting group, until mid 2015 when MEF Audit removed his name from their website.[1][15]