Mr Akishev is a veteran of the Central Bank, where he worked in various positions from 1996 to 2014 before moving to the Akorda as economic adviser to President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

In 2007 Mr Akishev was rumoured to be in pole-position for taking on the role of new chief of the financial regulator.

Instead has was named deputy head of the Central Bank, a position he held for seven years, under three different bosses.

In particular, Central Bank insiders said he achieved professional maturity under Grigori Marchenko, a respected liberal economist, who often clashed with Mr Nazarbayev on economic policies.

There have been wobbles, though, in Mr Akishev’s rise to the top. In December 2008, ominously, he said the economic situation was ideal for Kazakhstan.

“The Central Bank has no problems with the exchange rate of the tenge, quite the contrary,” he told RIA Novosti in an interview.

Two months later, the Bank devalued the tenge by 19%.

Media quoted some local analysts as saying that Mr Akishev lacks independence because of his young age and his lack of political authority. But Mr Akishev is the same age as Mr Marchenko was when he was named head of the Central Bank for the first time in 1999 and is five years older than Oraz Dzhandosov was, when he became Central Bank chief in 1996.

Mr Akishev’s predecessor, Kairat Kelimbetov, who held the job for two years during which the tenge lost half its value, had a different profile and no background at the Central Bank.

Mr Akishev might have accepted possibly the toughest job in Kazakhstan, but he is also one of the few people in the country with the experience and background to take it on.