Anders Åslund
Anders Aslund is presently a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Dr. Aslund has long engaged in monitoring the transformation of formerly socialist economies to market-based economies. While the central areas of his studies are Russia and Ukraine, he also focuses on the broader implications of economic transition. Immediately prior to his tenure at the Council, the renowned Swedish economist was Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics; earlier, he served as Director of the Russian and Eurasian Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Bihun
Andrew Bihun, presently President of The Washington Group (TWG), has enjoyed an extensive career in international marketing, particularly in analyzing global marketing opportunities and stimulating the growth of trade from his position in public sector, i.e. the U.S. Department of Commerce. In his long-term assignments in the Washington headquarters of the U.S. Commercial Service, Mr. Bihun developed and headed various foreign market research programs. The highlight of Mr. Bihun’s international career was a posting as Commercial Counselor and head of the Foreign Commercial Service of the US Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine from 1995 to 1999.
Stephen Blank
Stephen Blank is currently Senior Fellow on Russia at the American Foreign Policy Council; prior to his present position, Dr. Blank spent 24 years, 1989-2013, as a Professor of National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, PA. His expertise covers the entire Russian and post-Soviet region and he has also written extensively on defense strategy, arms control, information warfare, energy issues, US foreign and defense policy, European, and Asian security.
Ethan Burger
Ethan S. Burger is an international lawyer who has dealt with cybersecurity, financial crime, corporate governance, and Post-Soviet Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian matters at law firms and institutions of higher education, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the course of his career. he has managed an academic research program with overseas centers in Kharkiv, Moscow, and St. Petersburg for the U.S. Department of Justice, and advised Australian law enforcement bodies on a grant from the Australian Federal Police.
Janusz Bugajski
Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington DC and host of television shows broadcast in the Balkans. Bugajski has authored 19 books on Europe, Russia, and trans-Atlantic relations and is a columnist for several media outlets. His recent books include Conflict Zones: North Caucasus and Western Balkans Compared (2014), Return of the Balkans: Challenges to European Integration and U.S. Disengagement (2013), Georgian Lessons: Conflicting Russian and Western Interests in the Wider Europe (2010), Dismantling the West: Russia’s Atlantic Agenda (2009), America’s New European Allies (2009); and Expanding Eurasia: Russia’s European Ambitions (2008).
Ariel Cohen
Ariel Cohen is a well-known international expert on Ukrainian, Russian, Eurasian, European and Middle Eastern foreign, security and economic affairs; U.S. and global energy security; terrorism; organized crime and other political risk factors. Dr. Cohen is presently Director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security; concurrently, he is a Non Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Valeriy Chaly
Valeriy Chaly presently serves as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States. He came to the post immediately after having held the position of Deputy Head of Administration of the President of Ukraine. Before his political and foreign services appointments, Amb. Chaly worked a number of years as Deputy Director General of Ukraine’s leading NGO, the Razumkov Center, gaining recognition in Ukraine as well as internationally for his efforts at the institution.
William H. Courtney
William H. Courtney is Executive Director of the RAND Business Leaders’ Forum. From 1998 to 2000, he served as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In 1997-98, Dr. Courtney was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of the NSC staff for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. Previously, he served as Ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan.
Oleksandr Danyluk
Oleksandr Danyluk is the current Finance Minister of Ukraine. Immediately prior to his most recent appointment, Minister Danyluk served as Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (2014) and Deputy Head of Presidential Administration of Ukraine (2015). At an earlier point in his career, he spent several years at ‘Baker & McKenzie’, including a stint heading one on the firm’s London investment funds.
Orest Deychakiwsky
Orest Deychakiwsky is senior staff advisor at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) whose country responsibilities currently include Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria. He has served as a member of U.S. delegations to numerous OSCE/CSCE meetings and as an international election observer in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Bosnia. Mr. Deychakiwsky has authored or co-authored a sizable number of speeches, statements, resolutions, and articles on issues pertaining to Ukraine or U.S.-Ukrainian relations.
Nadia Diuk
Nadia Diuk serves as Vice President, Programs for Europe, Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private nonprofit organization funded by the U.S. Congress to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. For over twenty years prior to her appointment as Vice President, Dr. Diuk supervised NED programs in Europe and Eurasia where she worked on programs and strategies for the underground democratic movements before 1989, through to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and beyond.
Bohdan Futey
Bohdan Futey has served as Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims since 1987. Judge Futey is actively involved with Democratization and Rule of Law programs organized by the Judicial Conference of the United States, the Department of State, and the American Bar Association in Ukraine and Russia. He has participated in judicial exchange programs, seminars, and workshops and has been a consultant to the working group on Ukraine’s Constitution and Ukrainian Parliament.
Volodymyr Groysman
Volodymyr Groysman has served as Prime Minister of Ukraine since April 14 2016. From March 2006 until February 2014, Ukraine’s present premier was the Mayor of Vinnytsia. From February to November 2014, he held two concurrent positions as the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for Regional Policy and the Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine. He was elected into parliament on the party lists of the pro-presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc (October 2014); shortly thereafter, he took over and held the post of Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada until being appointed Prime Minister.
John Herbst
John Herbst is former United States Ambassador to Ukraine and presently Director for Eurasia at the Atlantic Council of the United States; immediately prior to the current posting, he served as Director of the National Defense University Center for Complex Operations. Amb. Herbst has worked as a political counselor at the US embassies in Tel Aviv, Israel, Moscow, Russia, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the Director of Regional Affairs in the Near East Bureau of the US State Department, as Director of the Office of Independent States and Commonwealth Affairs and as Principal Deputy to the Ambassador-at-large for the Newly Independent States. He was appointed Ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2000 before assuming the post of US envoy to Ukraine in 2003.
Lev Holubec
Lev Holubec is a Chicago-based Partner (Principal) in PwC’s Advisory M&A practice. He helps his clients achieve strategic objectives by driving success in their M&A; he specializes in untangling and overcoming the complexities of cross-border deals, with a primary focus on emerging markets. From 2008-2012, Lev led PwC’s M&A consulting throughout Central and East Europe (CEE) from his base in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Glen Howard
Glen Howard serves as the President of The Jamestown Foundation. Mr. Howard is fluent in Russian and proficient in Azerbaijani and Arabic, and is a regional expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was formerly an Analyst at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Strategic Assessment Center. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, and Jane’s Defense Weekly. Mr. Howard has served as a consultant to private sector and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Intelligence Council and major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Idil Izmirli
Idil Izmirli serves as Expert/Consultant on FDPs (Formerly Deported Peoples) in Crimea, Ukraine for the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities; concurrently, she is an adjunct faculty member of the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.
Laura Jewett
Laura Jewett is NDI’s regional director for Eurasia. She joined the Institute in 1994 and had served as the Eurasia team’s deputy director for 10 years. In the region, NDI is currently conducting programs to strengthen civil society and support multiparty democracy in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Dr. Jewett has traveled extensively in Eurasia, meeting with political, civic and government leaders to assess political conditions and design democracy assistance programs.
Adrian Karatnycky
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Program on Transatlantic Relations and managing partner of Myrmidon Group LLC, a NY-based consultancy that works with investors seeking entry into the complex emerging markets of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He is a founder and co-director of the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter. From 1993 to 2004, he was president and executive director of Freedom House, during which time he developed programs of assistance to democratic and human rights movements in Belarus, Serbia, Russia, and Ukraine.