Kulibayev was born on 10 September 1966 in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakh SSR, USSR. In 1988, he graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University, majoring in "National Economy Planning", making him an Economist by profession. He has a Ph.D. in Economics, and defended a thesis on: "Improvement of Organizational and Economic Mechanism of Enterprise Management in Market Environment (based on the oil industry)" (1999). He has a number of research publications. He speaks fluent Kazakh, Russian and English.