Valeria Gontareva
Valeria Gontareva is a member of Petro Poroshenko's corporate "Family" and the first woman in the country's history to hold the post-Maidan position as head of the National Bank. She took over the post-Maidan country's main financial regulator 12 days after the president's inauguration. Perhaps it was Gontareva who faced the heaviest criticism. She was accused of devaluing the Ukrainian hryvnia. During her speeches in the Rada, MPs attempted to beat her or pelted her with banknotes, while depositors rallied outside the NBU building, demanding a "garbage lustration" for her. All of this was accompanied by regular rumors of the National Bank's resignation; allegedly, a resignation letter was even on Poroshenko's desk, awaiting a tranche from the IMF. Despite all this, Valeria Gontareva has held the post for over two years.
Who really is Valeria Gontareva, the businesswoman who runs Ukraine's finances? SKELET-info.
Everyday life of a financier
Valeria Alekseevna Gontareva (née Satanovskaya) was born on October 20, 1964, in Dnipropetrovsk. She received her higher education in Kyiv, in the Instrumentation Department at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. After graduating, she worked for a time in the accounting department at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. This earned her the status of a participant in the Chernobyl disaster cleanup.
Gontareva (Satanovskaya) in her youth
Gontareva began her career in 1993 as an economist at the Ukrainian Interbank Currency Exchange. It's unclear how she landed this position. It wasn't until 1995 that the newly minted economist decided to pursue a specialized education. Gontareva enrolled at the Kyiv National Economic University and graduated with a master's degree in economics in 1997. Furthermore, within a few months, the student joined the board of directors of the Ukrainian subsidiary of the bank, Société Générale Ukraine, in 1996. Valeria Alekseyevna's primary job responsibilities were working in capital markets.
In January 2001, Gontareva transferred to ING Bank Ukraine, a subsidiary of the Dutch bank, as First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board under Oleksandr Pisaruk. In the summer of 2007, she assumed the position of Acting Chairman of the Management Board and simultaneously served as Head of the Financial Markets Department. That fall, Pisaruk resigned, and Gontareva became one of the leading contenders for his position. However, Johannes Franciscus Griesel was appointed. Following this, the financier left ING Bank Ukraine to pursue her own career.
The ICU Era
In one interview, Gontareva said she always imagined herself as a hired hand and would never be able to hold a leadership position. Her life changed at the notorious age of 40, just like that of the heroine of "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears."
In 2006, the ICU financial group entered the Ukrainian market. It included the Investment Capital Ukraine Asset Management Company (AMC) and the investment company of the same name. Valeria Gontareva's husband, Oleg, was listed as a co-founder of the AMC from its inception. Valeria Alekseyevna became the head of the ICU Group in 2007. She was the main inspiration and initiator of the investment structure's creation. Within a year, ICU became the sixth-largest investment transaction volume in Ukraine. What is the secret to its success?
Connections to "Putin's Bank." ICU worked closely with Yuri Solovyov, deputy head of VTB Bank (Russia's second-largest bank by assets and first by authorized capital; majority owner: the Russian government), as a quarter of the bank was owned by his wife, Galina Ulyutina (the managing partners, Konstantin Stetsenko and Makar Pasenyuk, each held an additional 22,74%).
Yuri Soloviev
He loaned Valeria Alekseyevna tens of millions of dollars from his offshore companies "for business development." Many people, when they hear the word "Russian," think only of "betrayal," but this situation is quite the opposite.
So, Gontareva hid the matter for a long time.
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