Roman Waschuk, ethnic Ukrainian, Canadian diplomat, Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine.

He studied history with focus on Central and Eastern Europe, also German and Russian, receiving 1985 a MA at University of Toronto.

In 1987 he began his career in the diplomatic service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada. First posted as second secretary for politics in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow.

Then he subsequently served as Political Counsellor in Kyiv in 1994-1998 and Minister-Counsellor for politics and economy in Berlin. 1991-1994 he worked on East European affairs in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada.

Since 2011 Waschuk has served as Ambassador to Serbia, with cross-accreditation to the Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro. He served there until September 2014.

Since October 2014 he has been the Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine.

He is fluent in English, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Serbian.

Business 100 is a collaboration between 100 of Ukraine’s most impactful investors to create an objective source of information for the business community of Ukraine.

Helen is the founding partner of EBS and has over 20 years of practical experience in international finance and accounting on the Ukrainian market. Helen’s personal mission is to influence the underlaying philosophy of Ukrainian management in order to help them unleash the full potential of their companies and to achieve outstanding results.

Gauthier Vasseur is a data analytics and digital transformation expert. His executive track record spans from large enterprises (Google, Oracle, Hyperion) to bootstrapped, series A and Pre-IPO companies. Gauthier has worked in finance, operations and marketing, building teams, analytics and scalable processes to fasten growth and improve transparency. He has brought his multifaceted experience and emphasis on data analytics into higher education.

Gauthier has over six years of experience teaching and training teams to drive efficient and data-driven processes, make the best of technology and become key actors of digital transformation in their own organizations. At the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, Gauthier is spearheading efforts to connect Haas faculty with business leaders to collaborate on the application of data science and analytics to business strategy.

Argentem Creek Partners is an emerging markets debt specialist investor with $1.5 billion of assets under management. Argentem has been actively involved in Ukraine as an investor, partner and leader in several well-known restructurings such as Mriya Agro Holding, Metinvest and Interpipe Ltd.

Mr. Patton’s 25-year career focus has been on illiquid credit and special situations in Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states. John holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA from Davidson, North Carolina.

The main focus of Mr. Ivanchyk’s business is the cultivation of sugar beet, grains and oilseeds, sugar and milk production. The company invests in production assets, information technologies for agribusiness, and the construction of infrastructure facilities for products storage.

“I believe that the time is always right for innovation. And crisis is the best period for innovation and new opportunities. Bioenergy production is now highly topical all over the world, it constantly gets large investments. And our company is no exception.”

The mission of BRDO is to develop and implement effective regulation system in Ukraine aimed at creating a better environment for business, favorable investment climate, and fostering Ukraine’s progress in the Doing Business rating.

Mr. Honcharuk is a Member of the National Council of Reforms of Ukraine (representative of the expert community) and an Advisor to the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.

Mr. Honcharuk‘s academic and professional background comprises a PhD in Law, MA in Public Administration and a many-year experience of attorney work. Oleksiy had become a co-founder and a managing partner of the Constructive Lawyers law firm, which ranked among top 75 law firms of Ukraine in the period of 2011 – 2015.

Mr. Honcharuk is also a graduate of the Aspen Institute Kyiv and Kyiv Mohyla Business School (School for Strategy Architects).

Galnaftogaz owns a network of 400 petrol stations in Ukraine. The group owns the largest network of highway catering in the country — 400 cafes at each petrol station and 38 restaurants.

The company is a part of the OKKO Group Holding, involved in production, trade, construction, insurance and consumer services. The investments of Mr. Antonov’s businesses in Ukraine exceed $1 billion.

Mr. Hart is a Founding Partner of Hillmont Partners, a Ukrainian law firm that specializes in corporate structuring, asset protection and corporate litigation.

He began his career on the Russia / CIS desk in Standard Bank Plc’s Family Office team in London. From 2011 to 2015 he was a member of the management board of one of the largest alcohol producers in Russia and Ukraine. He is a board member of a number of companies and charities, including the Alliance for Public Health in Ukraine, one of the country’s largest charities.

Mr. Hart is an Advisor to the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine – Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. He was educated at Eton College and then Durham University. He holds an MBA from London Business School.

Imtiaz Adam is the Founder and CEO of artificial intelligence startup Deep Learn Strategies Ltd (DLS) and is also known on Twitter as @DeepLearn007, an account that is rated as top 10 for digital influence on social media and artificial intelligence.

He is a machine learning engineer and the team at DLS work with advanced technologies, including AI on the edge that is set to take off with the world of 5G and industry 4.0, next generation drug discovery and personalised medicine as well as fintech.

In addition, Imtiaz is a Sloan Fellow in Strategy & leadership from London Business School and a former Executive Director of Morgan Stanley. He holds an MSc in Computer Science from the University of London (Distinction Grade) where he studied artificial intelligence and deep learning.

Joe Landon serves as Vice President of Advanced Programs Development for the Commercial Civil Space line of business for Lockheed Martin. In this role, he leads an organization accountable for new business growth, strategy development and enterprise collaboration for human and robotic deep space exploration, communication satellite solutions, weather and remote sensing markets.

In his previous role as CFO of Planetary Resources, Inc., Joe built the company’s finance team, and under his leadership, the company secured debt and equity financing from some of the world’s leading private and institutional investors before being acquired in 2018. Joe also co-founded and served as Chairman of the Board of Space Angels, the leading source of capital for space startups.

Joe served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Space Technologies and is an active member of the forum’s Expert Network. In 2016, Joe was honored as one of Seattle’s 40 Under 40 by the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Joe graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics. He earned a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Alexandra is the Founder and Managing Director of Global Technology Capital and President of the Global Technology Symposium, a premier investor conference on global emerging markets held annually in Silicon Valley since 2003. She invests in a broad range of companies, targeting enterprise, material science, alternative energy, and industry innovation and has grown a variety of product and services start-ups and emerging technology companies in the U.S, Russia and the CIS. She also serves as a board member for several technology companies, including Grid Dynamics, VisionLabs, and Rolith.

Prior to that, Alexandra was a Managing Director of DFJ VTB Capital Aurora, a venture group specializing in investments in the developing world. She was also a private sector Co-Chair of the U.S. – Russia Innovation Working Group and has spent her career connecting Bay Area investors with companies in emerging markets, supporting international cooperation and global talent. Previously Alexandra was a founder and managing director of Landbridge Capital LLC, an investment firm targeting U.S.-based companies commercializing Russian technology. Prior to forming Landbridge Capital, Ms. Johnson was CEO of Libritas, Inc., a venture backed provider of Information Technology (IT) products and managed telecom services for small, medium and Fortune 500 Corporations. Libritas was acquired in 2001.

Alexandra was named among Top 20 most influential men and women in Bay Area finance in 2015 (Worth).

Alexandra received an M.A. with honors from the Far Eastern State University, Vladivostok and a Ph.D. from University of St. Petersburg. She also has an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

During his student years, Yuriy was active in the international student organization AIESEC, starting as a local committee member and finishing as President in Kyiv. In 2005, he co-founded Kredit-Ekspert (formerly Enmark LTD) and successfully developed it until 2009. After the financial crisis, his business team moved to Ivano-Frankivsk and started a new company in the restaurant business, 23 Restaurants LTD.

In 2013, Yuriy became interested in city development issues in Ivano-Frankivsk and, together with other initiators, became a cofounder of the civic platform Teple Misto. As a manager of the organization, Yuriy set a goal to motivate and mobilize the intellectual middle class in the city to reach better standards of living and realize their potential as citizens. The most noteworthy project of Teple Misto to date is the creation of Urban Space 100, a public restaurant which was launched using the donations of 100 donors. Eighty percent of the profits of this social venture are directed to city and social development projects.

Currently Teple Misto, together with other organisations Insha Osvita, PACT, MitOst and Lviv Business School (Ukrainian Catholic University) started a new major impact investment project. The partners aim to revitalize an old plant in the center of Ivano-Frankivsk into an innovative center Promprylad.Renovation, in order to unleash the city’s economic potential. Yuriy became CEO of Promprylad.Renovation LTD in 2016. The project has already accomplished its first pilot reconstruction of 1789 sq. m. and filled it with 16 educational, business, and artistic spaces.

At the age of nine in 1978, Wyclef Jean emigrated to the United States with his family. He first achieved fame as a member of the New Jersey hip hop group the Fugees. Jean has won three Grammy Awards for his musical work.

On August 5, 2010, Jean filed for candidacy in the 2010 Haitian presidential election. The Electoral Commission ruled him ineligible to stand for office, as he had not met the constitutional requirement to have been a resident in Haiti for five years prior to the election.

Jean’s efforts at earthquake relief, highly publicized in 2010 throughout Haiti and the United States, were channeled through his charitable organization, Yéle Haiti. The charity, which conducted education and welfare activities in Haiti between 2005 and 2010, effectively closed in 2012. It was investigated for failure to file tax returns and mismanagement of funds; a high proportion of its money went to travel and administrative expense. The New York Times reported that much of the money raised by the organization in the Hope for Haiti Now telethon was retained by Jean for his own benefit.

In 2012, Jean published his memoir Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story. Along with Carlos Santana, Avicii and Alexandre Pires, Jean was chosen to perform the closing ceremony at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Their single, “Dar um Jeito (We Will Find a Way)”, the official World Cup anthem, was released on April 29, 2014.

Sarah Kunst, managing director of Cleo Capital, is an investor and entrepreneur who has worked at Apple, Red Bull, Chanel & Mohr Davidow Ventures. She founded LA Dodgers backed Proday and is a senior advisor at Bumble. She is also a contributing editor at Marie Claire Magazine. She is on the board of the Michigan State University Foundation Endowment.

Kunst has been named a Future Innovator by Vanity Fair, Forbes Magazine 30 under 30 and a top 25 innovator in tech by Cool Hunting. She has been recognized for her work in Business Insider as a 30 under 30 Woman in Tech and Top African-American in Tech & Pitchbook Top Black VC To Watch and Marie Claire Magazine named her a Young Gun to watch. She has written for Techcrunch, Forbes, Wall St. Journal, Fortune and Entrepreneur.com. Marc Andreessen named her one of his 55 Unknown Rock Stars in Tech.

Andy Hunder is President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, representing more than 600 US and international investors and corporate members.

A native Londoner, Andy was a TV presenter on a leading Ukrainian television channel. He headed the Public Relations department at Ukrainian Mobile Communications (now Vodafone Ukraine) and subsequently was External Affairs and Communications Director at GlaxoSmithKline with responsibility for Ukraine, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Hunder was the director of the Ukrainian Institute in London regularly delivering analysis and comment on Ukrainian current affairs on BBC, CNN, SKY, Bloomberg TV, ITV, Al Jazeera and others. He has spoken on Ukrainian affairs at the UK Houses of Parliament, House of Lords, Oxford University, London School of Economics and University College London.

He currently serves at Treasurer of Amchams Europe, the umbrella organization for American Chambers of Commerce in 42 countries throughout Europe accounting for more than $ 1.1 trillion in investment on both sides of the Atlantic. Andy is a member of the Supervisory Board of ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih, Ukraine’s Business Ombudsman Council, National Reform Council, National Investment Council and the Ronald McDonald House Charity Foundation.

Simon Anholt is the founder of the Good Country, a virtual nation designed to encourage traditional territory-based countries to work together to tackle global challenges like climate change, migration and terrorism.

He also publishes the Good Country Index, a survey that ranks countries on their contribution to humanity and the planet, and in 2016 launched the Global Vote, which enables anybody in the world to vote in the elections of other countries.

Professor Anholt has worked as an advisor to the presidents, prime ministers and governments of 55 countries during the last twenty years, helping them to engage more imaginatively and effectively with the international community.

Simon’s TED talk launching the Good Country Index has received 5.5 million views, and his more recent one launching the Global Vote, over a million.

Simon Anholt is the author of five books about countries, cultures and globalisation. He is the founder and Editor Emeritus of a leading academic journal focused on public diplomacy and perceptions of places, and publishes a major global study measuring the international standing of fifty countries and fifty cities, the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index and City Brands Index.

In 2009, President Obama nominated Melanne Verveer to be the first ever US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. In that capacity, she worked with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to coordinate foreign policy issues and activities relating to the political, economic and social advancement of women, traveling to some sixty countries. She led efforts to fully integrate women’s participation and rights into US foreign policy and to mobilize concrete support for women’s political and economic empowerment through public-private partnerships. President Obama also appointed Verveer to be US Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Today, she is the Director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security. The Institute seeks to enhance national and global security by documenting the crucial role women play in peace-building and security through research and scholarship and by engaging global leaders in conversations on the urgent issues of our time. She also serves as Special Representative on Gender Issues for the OSCE Chairmanship.

Ambassador Verveer is a founding partner of Seneca Point Global, the global women strategy firm. SPG partners with leading companies and institutions to design strategies that focus on women and girls to drive sustainable results – whether social, economic or both. She is the co-author of the bestseller, FAST FORWARD: How Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose.

Prior to her role at the State Department, Verveer was Chair and Co-CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO she co-founded to invest in emerging women leaders. Prior to Vital Voices, she was Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady in the Clinton Administration. She served as the chief assistant to Hillary Clinton in her wide-ranging international activities to advance women’s rights and further social development, democracy and peace-building initiatives. She also led the effort to establish the President’s Interagency Council on Women and was instrumental in the adoption of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Prior to her time in the White House, she held a number of leadership roles in public policy organizations and as congressional staff.

Ambassador Verveer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. She is on the boards of the Atlantic Council, National Endowment for Democracy and Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, as well as the World Bank Advisory Council on Gender and Development. She was the 2013 Humanitas visiting professor at Cambridge University, and she was selected to deliver the 2017 Tanner Lecture on Human Values at Clare Hall College, Cambridge. In 2008, the President of Ukraine awarded her the Order of Princess Olga. She has a BS and MS from Georgetown and holds several honorary degrees. She has received numerous awards including the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award. She was named to the NEWSWEEK “150 Women Who Shake the World” list; Fast Company’s “60 Influencers Who are Changing the World;” and Enterprising Magazine’s Hall of Fame.

Michael Collins is Chief Executive Officer of Invest Europe, the association representing Europe’s private equity, venture capital and infrastructure sectors and their investors.

He represents Invest Europe’s 650 members to political and regulatory stakeholders at the highest levels and guides the agenda-setting work of the world’s largest private capital association.

Michael holds a First Class degree in Modern History from Wadham College, Oxford, and also holds a postgraduate diploma in management.

Michael is a Canadian business leader, entrepreneur and investment banker. He currently leads Refraction Asset Management, a Canadian family office, and is CEO of TIU Canada, a Ukrainian energy company. Previously, Michael was an investment banker at Genuity Capital Markets and Canaccord Genuity. Prior to Canaccord he was a research analyst at Desjardins Securities. He has an MBA from the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary and a B.A (Honors) in Economics from Queen’s University.

Yulia Tychkivska is an executive director of the Aspen Institute Kyiv, a non-partisan and non-ideological body that promotes dialogue and understanding between Ukrainian leaders on key issues and that can contribute substantively to promotion of value-based leadership, establishment of dialogue culture and formulation of public policies. Yulia is a co-founder of Bendukidze Free Market Centre, a Ukrainian think tank created to promote liberty, limited open government and free market through analysis and development of new and modern policy options, introduction of educational programs and direct engagement with decision makers in the government, business and civil society. Four years Yuliya served as a Vice President at Kyiv School of Economics, a world-class academic institution, consultancy and think tank. She is a civic activist in Ukraine and founder of the Open University of Maidan. Mrs. Tychkivska also worked as a Head of the advisory group for Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

In 2017 Yuliya was elected as a Curator of World Economic Forum’s The Global Shapers Kyiv Hub.

In the 2018 Yuliya Tychkivska was selected by Forbes as a top 30 under 30 in Europe in Law and Policy field for her role in the building of civil society in Ukraine.

Giles Farley is a director at ICU, a leading asset management, private equity and investment advisory firm specializing in Ukraine. He co-leads the firm’s technology and venture capital investment activities. He has a long and successful track record in financial services with extensive experience in asset management, investment banking and financial restructuring.

He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Timothy Snyder, a historian of Europe, is one of the leading American historians and public intellectuals. He is the Richard Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Yale in 2001, he held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard.  He speaks five and reads 10 European languages. Among his publications are seven single-authored award-winning books, all of which have been translated: Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998, second edition 2016); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (2008); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010); and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning; and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018). Bloodlands won 12 awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. It has been translated into 33 languages, was named to 12 book-of-the-year lists, and was a bestseller in six countries. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015) appeared 30 foreign editions. It has been a bestseller in four countries and has received multiple distinctions including the award of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee. Snyder is also the co-editor of two books: Wall Around the West: State Borders and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (2001) and Stalin and Europe: Terror, War, Domination (2013). His most recent book is On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, which appeared in the United States in February 2017 and will be available in numerous foreign editions. In a very special project, Snyder helped his friend, the distinguished historian and intellectual Tony Judt, to compose a thematic history of political ideas and intellectuals in politics, Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012). Snyder’s essays on the Ukrainian revolution were published in in Russian and Ukrainian as Ukrainian History, Russian Politics, European Futures (2014).  A broader range of essays was published in Czech as The Politics of Life and Death (2015).  Snyder is perhaps best known around the world for his political pamphlet On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017), which was translated into forty languages.  Snyder sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Modern European History and East European Politics and Societies. His scholarly articles have appeared in Past and Present, the Journal of Cold War Studies, and other journals; he has also written for The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and The New Republic as well as for The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers. Snyder was the recipient of an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2015 and received the Havel Foundation prize the same year. He has received state orders from Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland. He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is the faculty advisor for the Fortunoff Collection of Holocaust Testimonies at Yale, and sits on the advisory councils of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research and other organizations.

Andrew Neil is a publisher, writer, businessman and broadcaster. He is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Press Holdings, owner of The Spectator and various titles around the world. On-screen he presents the BBC’s This Week and Daily Politics; off-screen he is Chairman of ITP, the large, Dubai-based magazine publisher, and Chairman and co-owner of World Media Rights, an international factual television producer.

After beginning his career in local journalism Andrew then became an advisor to the Secretary of State for the Environment in Edward Heath’s Government. He then joined The Economist, initially reporting from the US covering Washington and New York, where he also started reporting for broadcast media.

Andrew returned to the UK as British Editor of The Economist before becoming Editor of The Sunday Times. At the same time, he was appointed Executive Chairman of Sky Television, overseeing the satellite broadcaster’s launch which would revolutionise the UK media landscape. He also served as Executive Editor at Fox Television News in the US, and later published Full Disclosure, an autobiography of his time in the Murdoch organisation.

A respected, versatile broadcaster and opinion leader, Andrew is at the forefront of international media, business and political commentary. He’s fronted coverage of politics at home and abroad on Sunday Politics and BBC Parliament’s Politics Europe. He continues to covers events in Westminster on Daily Politics, and brings a dry wit and incisive take on politics and politicians on This Week.

Andrew has reported for programmes as diverse as Tomorrow’s World and Radio 4’s Today programme. He was a member of the International Advisory Board of Al Jazeera and Publisher of The Scotsman Group of newspapers for 10 years.

Kira Rudik is the CEO of Ring Ukraine. She has built, and continues to develop, an innovative research and product development company, creating state-of-the-art smart home security systems. Thanks to her management skills, the company has grown from 3 to 700 people in a single year and continues to grow. This year, Ring Ukraine joined the friendly family of Amazon.

Kira, as CEO, is the heart of her team and an expert in people management. Her skillful day-to-day administration and smooth operation of the business creates a unique atmosphere in the teams we are managing.

Her expertise, gained in the roles of Project management, Head of Project Management and Co-Founder of several business projects, confers upon her a deep understanding of project and people needs, and her experience in managing quality assurance processes at large gives her the perfect understanding of all project stages.

Academic Education:

Kira obtained her Master’s Degree in computer science at the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,” a top 10 academic university in Ukraine.

Additional education:

Executive Program for Women Leaders, Stanford Business School – 2018

Professional Experience:

Head of PM in TechTeamLabs (2013–2016);

TAIN Ukraine (2007–2013);

MiMedia, Brooklyn, NY (2010–2013);

Software MacKiev (2005–2007);

Ring Ukraine (COO), (2016 till now)

Interests & Hobbies:

Kira’s has a major interest in animal rescue charity and charitable donations. Being herself a generous person, she endeavours to help as many homeless domestic animals as she can.

She also enjoys traveling, as it broadens the mind and gives a fresh perspective of any situation.

James Peyer is the Founder and Managing Partner of Apollo Ventures, an early stage life science investment fund investing in Europe and the US focused exclusively on breakthrough therapeutics arising from the study of the biology of aging. Apollo founds companies with scientists, invests in early stage therapeutics projects, and contributes time and expertise to all aspects of early stage biotech companies. James has also spoken all over the world on the topic of aging, discussing how our knowledge of what makes us age will enable the greatest medical breakthroughs of the 21st century. He is also the founder and executive director of Cleara Biotech and on the Board of Directors at Aeonian Pharmaceuticals.

Before Apollo, James worked with McKinsey & Company in New York, where he focused on building new biotech companies and developing strategies for commercializing cell therapies. He specialized on assisting clients with challenges facing clinical technologies with novel modes of action and substantial development hurdles.

James earned his doctorate in stem cell biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where he was a National Science Foundation GRFP Fellow; he earned his bachelor’s in Immunology with highest honors from the University of Chicago.

Ieva began her diplomatic career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia in 1997 and continued her work in the field of foreign and security policy in different institutions focusing on the issues of security, democracy, and human rights.

In the late nineties Ieva was part of the Latvian MFA team that worked on Latvia’s goal to join the EU. After successful accession she continued her work in the field of security policy and democracy sharing Latvia’s experience and lessons learned with its Eastern neighbors – Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia. In 2005-2006 Ieva joined the Riga NATO Summit Task Force and led the local and NATO Public Diplomacy efforts for the NATO Summit 2006 in Riga.

From 2007 to 2010 Ieva was posted to the Latvian Delegation to NATO and from 2010 to 2011 she was seconded to the European Union as a Political Advisor to the EU Special Representative in the South Caucasus in Baku, Azerbaijan focusing on human rights among other topics.

In 2012 Ieva graduated the mid-career program at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC and returned to Latvia as Advisor to the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defense having responsibility to establish the NATO STRATCOM COE in Riga and coordinate national cyber security policy, including during the Latvia’s Presidency in EU. Additionally in 2016 she undertook the responsibilities of the First Lady of Estonia.

Ieva has received a State Award for her contribution to the NATO Summit in Riga, a Recognition of Foreign minister for developing the cooperation with NGOs and the promotion of democracy issues and Memorial Medal of the Minister of Defense for Advancing Latvia’s Membership to NATO.

Johan Eliasch is an Anglo Swedish businessman. He is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Head, the global sporting goods group, and the former Special Representative of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

He is on the board of directors of Equity Partners, Aman Resorts,London Films, the Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment, Longleat. He is an advisory board member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Polar Regions, Brasilinvest, Societe du Louvre, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Capstar, Centre for Social Justice and the British Olympic Association. He is a member of the Mayors of Jerusalem and Rome’s International Business Advisory Councils. He is the first president of the Global Strategy Forum, a trustee of Cool Earth and a patron of Stockholm University and chairman of the Saatchi Gallery.

Daria Shapovalova is known in the global fashion industry as a person who put her native country Ukraine on the world’s fashion map. Having a vast experience in fashion, marketing and branding, Daria Shapovalova launched careers of many well-known Ukrainian and Eastern-European designers. An acclaimed journalist, she contributed to many International media outlets. 30 Forbes under 30 in Art and Culture (2017), one of the 500 most influential people by Business of Fashion (2014, 2015), Daria runs a couple of successful businesses. Kyiv Fashion Institute, Daria’s private school became the most influential creative and fashion education center in Ukraine. The aim of Daris’s company More Dash is to promote contemporary designers worldwide and develop their distribution in best International stores across all the continents. Fashion Tech Forum that Daria established in Kyiv aims to bridge fashion and tech industries in Ukraine and to give an opportunity to young entrepreneurs to develop their ideas with International mentors.

Igor Liski is a famous Ukrainian businessman, investor and philanthropist. He attracts domestic and foreign investments in various sectors of the Ukrainian economy. The Group of Companies Effective Investments was founded by Igor Liski to carry out activities in different spheres of the economy and generate practical models of the country’s development. The main areas of company activities are connected with gas, energy, paper, agriculture, IT and creative industry.
Mr. Liski is also a co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future ‒ analytical center, which is engaged in the strategy formation for the economic development of Ukraine. He is a Member of the Board of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce, member of the Coordinating Council of the Association Aspen-Ukraine.
Mr. Liski has obtained Master’s degrees in International Economics and Jurisprudence. Currently he is completing Executive MBA at Said Business School, University of Oxford.
Honored with Commendation of Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine for the personal contribution to the development of business and significant achievements in professional activity and for outstanding achievements of young people in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Igor Liski’s main motto is to create high-responsible profitable business in Ukraine.

Viktoriya is the Managing Partner of the fund TA Ventures, which she founded in late 2010. TA Ventures is an international early-stage VC fund primarily focused on Mobility and Digital Health. TA Ventures co-invests with leading investors and has had the privilege to back such companies as Wunder Mobility, Caroobi, Klara, Sensely and 100+ others including Azimo, SumUp, Dreamlines. TA Ventures offers proactive support and a broad international network to its portfolio companies. By supporting them with establishing R&D centers in Ukraine and Europe, the fund helps its portfolio companies grow and stay competitive. Viktoriya leads iClub – a private investment club for angel investors which has been founded by TA Ventures. Viktoriya is also the cо-founder of WTECH – the first Ukrainian club for female tech CEOs; the Founder of CodeClub Ua – the Ukrainian network of volunteer-led coding clubs for children, with 600 clubs operating as of December 2018; the President of the Odesa International Film Festival – the largest film festival in CEE by audience size; and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Film Academy.

Composite Apps is a digital consulting company that specializes in applying a combination of mobile technology, user experience, and advanced analytics to solve real-world business problems. A leader in large-scale enterprise solution development, Composite Apps works with businesses to maximize the value of existing IT investments by creating unprecedented visibility and empowering users with tools to impact data-driven change within their organization. Among other areas, Composite Apps focuses on the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence.

Prior to this role, Charles was a co-founder at LearnerX and Halio Health,  innovation companies that create science-based, technology-enabled products and services to help people develop practical habits to improve their lives. In 2013 Charles received a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania, while concurrently earning three certificates from the Wharton School of Business.  Prior to that, he earned a master’s from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.  Previously, Charles worked as a marketing manager at sothebys.amazon.com and then in the Global Private Client Group at Sotheby’s, Inc., where he created a loyalty program for Chinese clients.  A graduate of Stanford University, Charles is a Trustee of Historic Hudson Valley and Asia Society as well as a member of the President’s Council of the University of Tokyo.

Fred Kempe is the president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. Under his leadership since 2007, the Council has achieved historic, industry-leading growth in size and influence, expanding its work through regional centers spanning the globe and through centers focused on topics ranging from international security and energy to global trade and next generation leadership.
Before joining the Council, Kempe was a prize-winning editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal for more than twenty-five years. In New York, he served as assistant managing editor, International, and columnist. Prior to that, he was the longest-serving editor and associate publisher ever of the Wall Street Journal Europe, running the global Wall Street Journal’s editorial operations in Europe and the Middle East.
He is the author of four books. The most recent, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, was a New York Times Best Seller and a National Best Seller.
Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs.

John Herbst is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Ambassador Herbst served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, retiring at the rank of career minister. He was the US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. Prior to his ambassadorship in Ukraine, he was the ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2000 to 2003. Ambassador Herbst previously served as US consul general in Jerusalem; principal deputy to the ambassador-at-large for the Newly Independent States; director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs; director of regional affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia. He most recently served as director of the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defense University. He has received two Presidential Distinguished Service Awards, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Ambassador Herbst’s writings on stability operations, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Russia are widely published.

Elliot Gerson is an executive vice president at the Aspen Institute, responsible for its policy programs, public programs, and relations with ten international partners. The Institute’s more than 30 policy programs provide neutral venues to undertake nonpartisan analysis, foster candid dialogue among leaders, advocate new policy, and promote best practices for maximum impact domestically and internationally. Public programs, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, Aspen Words, the Aspen Program in the Arts, and the Socrates Seminars open the Aspen Institute’s doors to broader audiences.  Mr. Gerson also administers the US Rhodes Scholarships. He previously practiced law, was a US Supreme Court clerk, held executive positions in state and federal government and on a presidential campaign, was president of health care and education start-ups, and led two national insurance and health care companies. He has served on many nonprofit boards, especially in the arts.  Mr. Gerson has degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Yale universities.

Olga Kudinenko is a founder of Tabletochki located in Kyiv, Ukraine. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla academy” and successfully completed a certification in communication at the same institution. Also, Olga attended a “Responsible Leadership” program at the Aspen Institute Kyiv and a Practicum for Directors at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo.

Olga has a proven track record of over seven years of public relations management in the corporate domain. She curated education fairs at QS Company in London and led national charitable projects at Victor Pinchuk Foundation. Her involvement in the nonprofit grew in 2011 when she became a volunteer in the oncology department of the Okhmatdyt hospital. In 2013, Olga started a charitable foundation Tabletochki and now serves as a point of contact for media, manages a CEO, communication, and fundraising specialists, and is responsible for the organization’s strategic development and partnership with donors.

Due to Olga’s dedication and commitment to charity in Ukraine, she was named one of the «TOP 100 women of power» by Focus magazine (in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), «100 successful women» and «TOP 100 people of power» by Novoe Vremya magazine, and included in «30 by 30» (a list of young professionals with outstanding achievements under the age of 30) by Forbes magazine.

She has a strategy of establishing a children cancer hospital with a multidisciplinary team of doctors. The hospital will receive both state and donor-funding and offer holistic treatment and rehabilitation programs. Olga is committed to increasing the number of children cancer curable cases by 90% by powering friendly medical treatment environment and granting access to modern fully-equipped facilities.

Marina has over 15 years of experience in HR and Organizational Development. Since joining Ciklum in 2005 she has taken one of the leading roles in bringing the company from 90 to over 3500 people and building a strong employer brand with distinctive and vibrant culture. As a representative of CIklum, Marina is an active participant of EBA IT Committee as well as IT Ukraine Association, contributing a lot to the integration of IT ecosystem in Ukraine. She is also a Supervisory Board member of BrainBasket Foundation, which was established in March 2014 and is aimed at helping Ukrainians to orient in the world of technologies and make the first steps toward IT profession. Over 3000 people has been through free courses, conducted by experienced mentors in 60 learning hubs across 36 cities of Ukraine.

Svitlana Grytsenko is a director of national programs at the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, an international, private philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine that was established in 2006 with the aim to empower the young generation to change their country and the world. Svitlana is in charge of the scholarship programs Zavtra.UA and WorldWideStudies, and public lectures by world leaders for Ukrainian students. She also coordinates from the foundation’s side the Ukraine Election Task Force project which was launched by the Atlantic Council, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity to prevent foreign meddling in Ukraine’s election.

Jaroslawa Z. Johnson was appointed WNISEF President and CEO effective January 1, 2015. Ms. Johnson directs, oversees and provides overall management for the WNISEF program activities and remains a member of the Fund’s Board of Directors in addition to her role as President and CEO.
Ms. Johnson was born in Ukraine and emigrated to the U.S. as a child. She is a graduate of Goucher College and University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was editor of the law review and earned a J.D. in 1977. After law school, she served as law clerk to Chief Judge Thomas E. Fairchild, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and practiced corporate law with several Chicago law firms.

She is a founding member and former chairperson of America Ukraine Business Council, which sponsored the first American visit of a Ukrainian president in 1991, and she organized the first Ukraine-U.S. Trade Conference for American companies in 1992. She was appointed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton to the Board of Directors of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund in 1994, serving as an active member of the Board since its inception.

Prior to her appointment as President and CEO of WNISEF, Ms. Johnson was managing partner of an international law office in Kyiv, Ukraine, which she launched in the early 1990s. Ms. Johnson’s extensive international corporate practice included counseling corporations in many countries on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, financing transactions, project finance and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance in the US and Central and Eastern Europe.
Over the course of more than two decades of international corporate legal work, Ms. Johnson advised many Fortune 500 companies and other Western multinationals on cross-border transactions with Ukraine. During her many years as an international corporate attorney in Ukraine, Ms. Johnson was consistently recognized by international legal directories as a leading lawyer in Ukraine’s corporate, banking and finance and energy sectors.

In August 2016 Jaroslawa Z. Johnson was awarded a Commemorative Medal on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence by President Petro Poroshenko in recognition of her contribution to Ukraine over the past 23 years.

Olga Afanasyeva serves as the Executive Director of UVCA. Financial Times and Google nominated as a Changemaker New Europe 100 in 2016. In 2017, Olga was appointed as Ukraine’s Ambassador of Women in Venture Capital. Olga holds a PhD in Finance at the Ukrainian banking academy of the National Bank of Ukraine. She has been studying at the University of Applied Sciences of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Academy of Capital Market Leaders at Lesław A. Paga Foundation (Poland). Olga has 8 years of experience lecturing at Ukrainian banking academy of the National Bank of Ukraine, University of Greenwich (London, UK), as well as at the Jean Monnet Program of Erasmus. She has experience in corporate governance and international cooperation. She also worked at the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Olga is the member of EU Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Working Group “Economic Integration & Convergence with EU Policies”. She is an author of more than 50 scientific papers, researches, and 3 books in finance, investments and banking. Olga was co-organizer of Ukrainian Davos Nights (January 2017), and initiator of first-ever Ukrainian Startup Pavilion at Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas.

Dan McCann is a business builder and founder of several award-winning companies in areas spanning retail, education, entertainment and technology.
He’s been recognized as a high-impact leader of the future by organizations including Next Canada, Deloitte & Touche and NYC Economic Development Corporation.
As President of Kodisoft, a global Internet of Things company, Dan is leading the efforts to scale Interactive Restaurant Technology across North America. Their world-leading sensor technology has received a positive global reception from the leaders of Intel, Cisco, Adobe, Microsoft – and even Justin Trudeau.
Previously, leading a joint venture with Cirque du Soleil around immersive and active experiences, Dan loves opportunities to blend business and the arts with technology.

Yuliya Kovaliv has almost ten year experience of executive positions in business and public administration. Before the joining National Investment Council Office she served as the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade and was responsible for reforming state enterprises and for investment policy. She was also a Commissioner at Energy and Utilities Regulator in Ukraine. From April 2016 to April 2017 Yulia Kovaliv also held the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board in “Naftogaz Ukraine”.

In her early career Yulia worked for Ernst & Young, audit and financial consulting companies in Ukraine, hold CFO position in utility and energy supplying companies.

Daniel Bilak is the Chairman of UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian government’s investment promotion office, and Chief Investment Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has also appointed him to the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian  Railways, where he serves as Vice-Chairman. A Canadian-qualified lawyer, Daniel has 27 years of  professional experience in Ukraine and the CEE region, including as a senior governance and reforms advisor to the governments of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Lithuania, as Managing Partner of the Ukraine office of global law firm CMS Cameron McKenna, advising international companies in the energy, agribusiness, infrastructure and technology sectors, and as Counsel to Ukraine’s Business Ombudsman.

Daniel is a member of the Senate of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the university’s governing body.

Ailish Campbell joined Global Affairs Canada as the Chief Trade Commissioner in March 2017.  ‎The Trade Commissioner Service provides Canadian business with practical advice on foreign markets to help companies sell, export and grow through more than 160 offices in Canada and around the world.  (www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca)

Previously she was General Director at Finance Canada and Vice President, Policy – International and Fiscal Issues, at the Business Council of Canada.
She serves on the board of the Banff Forum, a national non-partisan not-for-profit organization promoting leadership and public policy engagement, and the International Advisory Council of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.
Ailish holds a BA (Honours) from Queen’s University, a Master of Science, Economics (International Relations and International Political Economy) from the London School of Economics and a D. Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. In 2014 she was designated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Mike Harvey is head of content and communications at Web Summit. In just seven years, Web Summit has grown from 400 attendees to over 60,000 from more than 170 countries. It is now the world’s largest and most important startup, investor and technology meeting place with sister events in the US and Asia, connecting startup ecosystems across the globe. Mike is a former journalist and head of comms for Google in Europe.

Karin Rubinstein is a CEO of the Israel Advanced Technology Industries (IATI).
IATI is Israel’s umbrella organization of the high-tech, life science and other advanced technology industries, with over 700 members from every level and aspect of the ecosystem. Prior to her current position, Karin served as a senior partner and managing director of business development in leading commercial law firms. Karin is a member of steering committees and a keynote speaker at many leading global conferences around the world and in the United Nations. She is a Member of the Board of Governance of Tel Aviv University and a Director in the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce.
Karin holds a BA at Economics, an LLB and an MBA from Tel-Aviv University. Karin was nominated, twice in a row, as one of the “Top 100 Influential Young Business Persons” in Israel by Forbes Magazine, as well as one of the Marker’s “Top 40 Leading Young Business Persons”.

Volodymyr Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer. He holds a PhD in sports sciences. During his long successful sporting career as a world heavyweight champion Mr. Klitschko has held WBA, IBF, WBO (twice) and IBO titles. Mr. Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. As an amateur, Mr. Klitschko represented Ukraine at the 1996 Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division.

Overall, Mr. Klitschko holds the record for the longest combined world championship reign in boxing history.

Together with his brother Vitaliy, Volodymyr co-founded Klitschko Foundation. The foundation works with Ukrainian children to support their dreams and goals to excel in sports and sciences.

Dmytro is ACCA, he worked for Deloitte for 8 years and became the winner of Deloitte CIS Audit Challenge with his Audit BigData SAP solution which was widely implemented in CIS offices. He is one of the top executives within Ukraine’s military defense industry after its large scale reform was launched by the government in 2014—2015.

Helmut Sussbauer guides his colleagues as DT’s Innovation Catalyst in the development of new disruptive technologies, partner and markets for Deutsche Telekom and vice versa. He conceived this role over 5 years as Head of Innovation Management at Deutsche Telekom with the aim of democratizing and decentralising innovation within.
Since 1999, he has regularly been entrusted with highly innovative lighthouse projects at Deutsche Telekom, after working in the Economics Department of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Olena Prykhodko is President of JCI Monaco, an international organization uniting with more that 200.000 entrepreneurs between the age of 18 and 40 to create positive change in the local environment. With a history in establishing technology startups, Olena is currently Founder and President of Modelex which providing tailored educational solutions for families around the world. She is Co-Founder of Lingtwins Ltd, London, an interactive online platform that connects native speakers all around the world to learn and practise languages.

Vitaly M. Golomb is an Odessa-born, Silicon Valley-raised venture investor, serial entrepreneur, author, and sought after international keynote speaker. Grew up in Cupertino and has been involved with the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem for over 20 years since being a teenage intern. Took three companies from idea to exit as CEO – the last one with an engineering office in Kyiv. Serves as an advisor and board member to a number of companies, including Rimac Automobili. Contributing writer at TechCrunch. Produced the Startup AddVenture conference in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, and Azerbaijan.

Guest lectured at Stanford, UC Berkeley, St. Mary’s and other universities around the world on entrepreneurship, innovation, and design. Travels to over 20 countries each year as a keynote speaker and is a consistently top-ranked mentor at startup accelerator programs in US, Europe, and Asia.

Nathaniel has a passion for developing new products and initiatives that improve the lives of the people who use them, and has spent the majority of his career leveraging his technical background to develop technology in the spaces of augmented reality (AR), transportation, and clean energy through which he designed and built AR motorcycle helmets and electric race boats. Most recently Nathaniel has been working in VC for Wildcat Venture Partners in San Francisco. Nathaniel was originally attracted to VC because of its ability to help bring many products to market at once while being a guiding force in the creation of those products, but his work at Wildcat is informed by his work outside of VC. His original thesis started with what he knew from his background in engineering, robotics, and augmented reality, which are still parts of his core theses. His thesis has since morphed into something deeper through his work with Global Shapers. Nathaniel’s Shaper project started around homelessness in San Francisco through which he co-founded an initiative called Education2Employment that has now morphed into mentoring incarcerated people assimilating back into society through Defy Ventures. This focus on lifelong learning is core to our Edtech thesis at Wildcat.

Mike Butcher is an Editor-at-large of TechCrunch Europe. A long time journalist, he has written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman.
He has been named one of the most influential people in technology in surveys by The Daily Telegraph, GfK NOP, The Independent, Wired and The Evening Standard alongside with being a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg.
Mr.Butcher is also a co-founder of TechHub, a co-working network for startups, and founder of the Coalition for a Digital Economy and a London Technology Ambassador.

Alexa Chopivsky is Executive Director, American Center for a European Ukraine; Founder/CEO, Transnational Education Group; and Director, Program on the World Economy, The Aspen Institute. For seven years, she was a journalist with NBC News where she covered world events from the New York, Washington, and London bureaus. After a period as Associate Director at an international communication consultancy in London, she moved to Kyiv. There she worked as a freelance journalist, traveling across Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and as a consultant. A Ukrainian-American, Ms. Chopivsky received a BA from Yale University with distinction in Russian & East European Studies and Political Science, an MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and an MIPP from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member and a 2012-2013 member of Eurasia Foundation’s Young Professionals Network.

Andrew Chakhoyan founded Strategic Narrative Consulting in July 2017 as an advisory firm helping clients to develop public policy positions, define communication strategies, and strengthen stakeholder engagement.
He has been involved with VEON, overseeing public policy and government affairs across market footprint of 235M customers, the World Economic Forum, heading regional engagement for Eurasia, the Millennium Challenge Corporation implementation in Armenia, Moldova, Mongolia, and Ukraine.
He has Master’s in Public Administration by Harvard Kennedy School (USA), Executive Master’s in Global Leadership and BS in Engineering Donetsk State Tech University (Ukraine).

Kadie Ward founded Build Strong Cities in 2012 to help to empower communities, local governments and economic developers alike to effect sustainable growth. She currently serves as a senior governance advisor with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partnership for Local Economic Development and Democratic Governance, working with sixteen cities across Ukraine to support open governance, economic development and intergovernmental cooperation.
She’s passionate about the long-term sustainable growth of the countries through customized community economic development. Her award-winning programs prove that traditional rules to economic development were meant to be broken. Kadie received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and Development Counsellors International included her in its Top 40 Under 40 list.

Lenna Koszarny is Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Horizon Capital, a leading private equity firm focused on Ukraine and the near region with over $800 million in AUM via four funds, and a member of its Investment Committee. Lenna is also Executive Vice-President of Western NIS Enterprise Fund, a $150 million US-government backed fund. Ms. Koszarny is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC) in Ukraine, an organization with over 600 members. She is also a Member of the Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEW