Lessons for purpose-driven leadership through crisis: the war in Ukraine

Yuliya Kovaliv

Ukraine's Ambassador to Canada

Yuliya Kovaliv was appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada and arrived to Ottawa on March 29, 2022.

Yuliya Kovaliv has almost ten years of experience in executive positions in public administration and Ukraine’s investment promotion.

Prior to joining the Embassy Ambassador Kovaliv held the position of the Deputy Head of Office of the President of Ukraine in charge of economic policy development and IFIs coordination. She also served as the Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board of National State-Owned oil&gas company “Naftogaz of Ukraine” (2019-2021), the Deputy Secretary of the National Investment Council of Ukraine under the President Ukraine and the Member of the National Reform Council. In 2017- 2019 Ambassador Kovaliv served as the Head of the Office of the National Investment Council of Ukraine under the President of Ukraine, advisory platform, which included global business leaders and IFIs, where she was in charge of investment promotion, policy dialog and FDI attraction.

In 2015 – 2016 Ambassador Kovaliv served as the First Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Trade overseeing reforms of privatisation, corporate governance of state-owned enterprises, investment policy, liberalization of the energy sector and IP. In 2016-217 she served as a Chairwomen of a newly-launched Supervisory Board of National State-Owned oil&gas company “Naftogaz of Ukraine”, aimed to bring governance of the biggest state-owned company to the OECD standards, open access to global financial markets and strengthen Ukraine’s energy security. In 2014-2015 Ambassador Kovaliv served as the Commissioner of the National Regulatory Commission for Energy and Utilities. Before joining the Regulator, Yuliya Kovaliv was in charge of public administration and energy sector reform coordination at the Coordination Center of Economic Reforms.

Prior to her career in public sector Ambassador Kovaliv spent 6 years working in the private sector.

Yuliya Kovaliv was born in Ivano-Frankivsk. She holds a Master of Economics from the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and a Master of Public Administration from the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine.

Ambassador Kovaliv is married with two children.

Andy Hunder

President, American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine

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.

From 2016 till 2020, Andy Hunder served as Treasurer of AmChams in Europe, the umbrella organization of 49 AmChams across 47 countries throughout Europe and Eurasia. AmChams in Europe represents the interest of more than 17,000 American and European companies in Europe, with more than 20 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic and $1.1 trillion in investments.

Andy serves on the Supervisory Board of Ukraine’s Business Ombudsman Council, Ukraine Invest, and Ukrainian Catholic University.

Sofiya Opatska

Vice Rector for Strategic Development, Ukrainian Catholic University

Sofiya Opatska is Vice Rector for Strategic Development at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). She is Founding Dean and Head of the Board of UCU Business School. Sofiya is also Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the European Federation of Catholic Universities (FUCE) and a member of the Board of first Impact Investment project in Ukraine Promprylad.Renovationof. Sofiya brings over 25 years of experience in business education and managing educational institutions as well as in the corporate sector. She continues to be a change agent in the Ukrainian education system and the development of business education in Ukraine. Sofiya brings a deep understanding of the challenges of fast-growing organizations. Her current research and teaching interests include resilience, crises management, and leadership in Ukrainian companies during the current war period.

Andriy Rozhdestvensky

Professor of Leadership & Executive Director, Ukrainian Catholic University Centre for Leadership

Andriy Rozhdestvenskyy is professor of leadership and in 2016 became the executive director of the Ukrainian Catholic University Center for Leadership. He received a higher education degree in Psychology from the National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, did his post graduate studies at the G.S. Kostiuk Institute of Psychology in Kyiv, and successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Andriy is a member of the Supervisory Board of Transparency International in Ukraine, and a business consultant. He worked as a profiler-analyst in the Israeli security service, engaged in counter-terrorism activities, particularly in the establishment of special communications and negotiations. He later became an HR partner for the retail business at JSC Oschadbank, where he had to adapt Western HR tools to the realities of a state-owned enterprise and participated in other HR-related activities. Subsequently, as Deputy HR Director, he and his team built a business training system for 35,000 employees from scratch. In the last six months at JSC Oschadbank, he headed the HR department across the entire bank system. Andriy is the co-author of two documentary films dedicated to leadership as well as several business cases.