Miller, aged 43, has trodden a very different career path to the so-called oligarchs whose entrepreneurial skills enabled them to make quick fortunes during the turbulent Russian oil privatisations of the 1990s, such as Sibneft's multi-millionaire owner Roman Abramovich, who later acquired England's Chelsea football club.
By contrast, Miller's meteoric rise to become head of one of the world's largest energy companies is more the function of his bureaucratic diligence and an uncanny ability to make the right contacts.
A graduate of the institute of finance and economy in St Petersburg, Miller's first lucky break came when he joined an informal club of young economists formed in the city by Russia's future privatisation minister Anatoly Chubais in 1984.
The club, which existed until 1987, provided a valuable point of contact between Miller and Chubais. In 1990, Chubais invited Miller to work as an ordinary apparatchik in the economic development department of Lengorispolkom in St Petersburg the Soviet equivalent of a city council. At that time, Chubais was the head of the economic development department, which he soon left when he took a government post in Moscow.
However, in June 1991 Soviet economist Anatoly Sobchak was elected mayor of St Petersburg and Lengorispolkom was disbanded. In the subsequent bureaucratic reshuffle, Miller moved to a post in the market competition development section of the foreign relations department of the city council that was formed to replace Lengorispolkom.
Here, Miller used the second and maybe most important chance in his life, getting closer to the head of the city council's foreign relations department, a close friend of Sobchak and future Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
According to Miller's former colleagues from that time, he was not a bright person, sometimes arrogant, touchy, had communication and other problems and was a difficult personality to deal with. However, they say that he was a zealous bureaucrat who loyally served his bosses.
In 1992, Miller moved up to become Putin's deputy and remained in the post until summer 1996 when Chubais was defeated at the mayoral elections.
The new mayor brought in his own team. Miller had to move out, taking the post of deputy director for development and investments in the port of St Petersburg, which he had supervised during his tenure in the city council.
However, he did not lose touch with Putin who went to Moscow to work in the administration of the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin. According to Profil magazine, Miller frequently visited Putin at his office in Moscow.
In 1999, Yeltsin nominated Putin as Russia's prime minister, which proved favourable for Miller who was then promoted to the post of general director of the Baltic Pipeline System.
At the beginning of 2000, Miller moved to Moscow to take up the post of deputy energy minister soon after Putin was made interim Russian president after Yeltsin announced his resignation on 31 December 1999.
Given Miller's lack of direct experience in the oil and gas business, some industry analysts assumed he would rise to become Russia's next energy minister. However, he was clearly being groomed by Putin for the top post at Gazprom.
In May 2001, in a widely expected move, Putin fired long-serving Gazprom executive chairman Rem Vyakhirev and surprised the market by appointing Miller in his place.
Now, almost four years since his nomination, Miller has proven that he is a capable apparatchik who diligently fulfills the orders of his boss, according to some observers in Moscow.
In the first year of his tenure, Gazprom regained control over gas assets that Vyakhirev had passed to Russia's former largest independent gas producer Itera. Gazprom also forcibly restored its ownership of the country's largest petrochemical producer Sibur and the NTV television channel, whose reporters upset Putin.
For some, Miller appears to have an almost machine-like efficiency. Last year, Miller told Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper that he often works between 18 and 19 hours a day. At one of his first press conferences in the heavily guarded Gazprom headquarters in Moscow, he paid no attention to his guards beating a photographer who tried to get too close to him.
Almost all that is known to the general public about Miller's private life is that he is married, has a son and has an electric oven at home.
Telling German reporters about the oven, Miller did not forget to mention that the electricity for the oven is produced from gas delivered by Gazprom.
Miller appears to like being perceived as the minister of the Russian gas industry, rather than a businessman. In an interview last year, he told a story about meeting with Soviet gas veterans during which they called him "our sixth minister". He then said that such a description of his role was "very precious to him".
Miller says that he has ministerial functions because he deals with the strategy and long-term goals of the Russian gas industry. He says that only Gazprom not gas independents or Russian oil companies is capable of developing new huge gas reserves on the Yamal peninsula and in the Barents Sea.
As the 'minister', Miller does not want Gazprom to be broken up. With the help of Putin, Miller has thwarted all attempts to restructure the monopoly, and proposed the government increase its stake in Gazprom to 51% from its present 38%. Miller believes that Gazprom should grow larger by expanding into such areas as LNG production and large-scale oil development.
