Yuriy Vitrenko

Yuriy Vitrenko was born in the city of Kyiv on 17 September 1976.

His father, Yuriy Mykolayovytch Vitrenko (Ukrainian: Юрій Миколайович Вітренко; born on 21 September 1947 in the city of Romny, Sumy region), graduated from D. S. Korotchenko Kyiv Economic Institute (currently Kyiv National Economic University) where he majored in economics, specializing in finance and credit, and later acquired his PhD. Yuriy Mykolayovytch was awarded an honorary departmental decoration "For dedicated work, I degree" (2007) and the title of Honoured Economist of Ukraine (2007). In 1991–2010, he held various positions at the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, retiring as Deputy Minister of Economy.

His mother,[3] Nataliya Mykhailivna Vitrenko (Ukrainian: Наталія Михайлівна Вітрéнко; born on 28 December 1951 in the city of Kyiv), is a Ukrainian politician, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Member of Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) of the II and III convocations, who ran for President of Ukraine in the elections of 1999 and 2004. Nataliya graduated from D. S. Korotchenko Kyiv Economic Institute; she has a PhD degree in statistics and is a Doctor of Economics.

Vitrenko spent his childhood in Kyiv. In the 1980s, his father had already started his career working at DerzhPlan (the State Planning Committee of the Ukrainian SSR); his mother worked as an assistant professor at the Department of Statistics at the Kyiv Economic Institute.

In 1991, after his parents' divorce, Vitrenko stayed with his father. According to media reports, Nataliya Vitrenko mentioned that her energetic political activities had been the main reason for divorce. At the age of 5, Vitrenko started studying at the Ukrainian-language school No. 172 and became actively engaged in football training, attending the FC Dynamo Kyiv academy. After the 8th grade, Vitrenko enrolled in the economic class of gymnasium No. 153, while simultaneously attending classes at the KROK Kyiv Management School. Later on, this high-school level educational institution was reorganized into the Economics and Business Lyceum, from 1993 – Kyiv Business Lyceum. During his studies at the Lyceum, Vitrenko participated in various academic events and competitions, was elected president of his class, and was a winner of the All-Ukrainian competition "Manager-selection".

• 1996 – graduated from the Kyiv National Economic University with a bachelor's degree in International Economics, cum laude;
• 1997 – graduated from the Kyiv National Economic University with a master's degree in International Business Management, cum laude;
• 1997–2000 – postgraduate studies at the Department of International Economic Relations of the Institute of International Relations at the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University;

While studying at the Kyiv National Economic University, Vitrenko completed coursework at the Iowa State University of Science and Technology, United States, as well as taking part in various international student conferences.

• 2002 – after passing 14 examinations and obtaining required professional experience Yuriy became a member of the "Association of Chartered Certified Accountants" (ACCA) – one of the major international accounting organizations—and became a Fellow of ACCA in 2007.
• 2004 – Vitrenko obtained an MBA degree from INSEAD, an international business school based in France and Singapore, thereafter taking up internship at Merrill Lynch, an investment bank in London, UK.
• 2005 – became an Associate Member (ASI) of London Securities & Investment Institute, received Level 3 Certificate in Investments (Securities & Financial Derivatives).

1991 – Vitrenko got his first experience in finance at 14 years old, during his internship as assistant accountant at PJSC Ukrinbank; 1992 – 1993 – analyst at the Ukrainian financial group, while being a full-time student at the Kyiv National Economic University; 1995 – 1996 – second-category specialist at PJSC Ukrinbank, International Settlements and Foreign Economic Activity Division; 1998 – 2002 – different positions at the management-consulting unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a leading provider of audit and consulting services. He left the company in 2002, having reached the position of Senior Consultant at the Management Consulting Services department. His main responsibilities included financial management, information systems for financial management, overall strategy and financial strategy. He was part of a team working on projects for major Ukrainian and international companies;

May–September 2001 – Vitrenko tried to combine his job at PricewaterhouseCoopers with academic endeavours, working as research assistant at the Department of International Integration Strategy of The Institute for Economic Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He quit this side-job, however, and decided to devote all his time to consulting, continuing his work at PricewaterhouseCoopers; 2002 – Vitrenko agreed to participate in the project of developing strategy and creating a vertically-integrated company, undertaken for Naftogaz of Ukraine, as an assistant to the Deputy Chairman of Naftogaz (until his admission to the MBA programme in 2003). Since then and up until now, he has been involved with the company in various roles, such as assistant to the Deputy chairman, Head of the Corporate Finance Department, Chief Advisor to the chairman, non-staff Advisor to the chairman, and Director for Business Development. During this time, Vitrenko was involved in attracting some of the largest loans that the company has ever taken up, and was responsible for a successful restructuring of USD 1.6 billion worth of the company's international loans and eurobonds.

2004 – 2005 – after completing the MBA programme, Vitrenko held the following positions at Naftogaz: Head of the Financial and Economic Activity Planning Division, Head of the Corporate Finance Department, Deputy Head of the Department of Economics and Pricing. However, he voluntarily resigned from Naftogaz because of the biased attitude of Ukraine's top political leadership to Vitrenko's surname.

2005 – 2006 – Vitrenko was employed in the Investment Banking Department at the London office of Merrill Lynch. During that time, he worked on a number of M&A transactions in the Ukrainian, Russian and East European markets.

2006 – Vitrenko tried to create a new high-tech retail bank in cooperation with partners. However, the project was not successful because of the changes in the partners' views on the future project development.

2006 – 2007– became first an Advisor, and then Chief Advisor to the chairman of the board of Naftogaz. Vitrenko arranged for international funding and was asked to undertake economic calculations and subsequent negotiations on gas prices and gas transportation charges with OJSC Gazprom. His disagreement with the contracts as they were signed became one of the main reasons for his decision to resign. After his resignation, Vitrenko published an article detailing his views in a leading Ukrainian weekly newspaper.[4]

2008 – 2010 – Senior Vice President and chief operating officer at Amstar Europe, a private equity fund affiliated with Amstar Group headquartered in Denver, United States.

2008 – 2014 – Vitrenko was invited to help restructure Naftogaz's international debt (replacing it with newly issued Eurobonds) as non-staff Advisor to the Chairman of Naftogaz. This position did not prevent Vitrenko from constructively criticizing the government's policy of resolving the gas dispute with Russia, which he did by publishing a number of articles devoted to this issue. After the company leadership changed in 2010, Vitrenko kept his non-staff advisor position, but the new leadership did not try to tap his advice.

In 2010, Vitrenko founded an investment company called AYA Capita, of which he remains a co-owner. At the end of 2013, there were a number of media reports on AYA Capital's putative plans to take part in restructuring the debt of the bankrupt state-owned enterprise Coal of Ukraine.[5] Among other things, AYA Capital conducts economic analysis, and its domestic and international reviews are publicly available on its website ayacapital.com. In particular, three special reports were published in March 2014: "Economic Reforms: Aren’t we missing the point?", "First actions of the new government: do they meet expectations about economic reforms?" and "Lustration and Amnesty: towards a new economic system", in which AYA Capital analysts provided their forecasts, recommendations and assessments regarding new government actions.

Vitrenko currently remains AYA Capital's CEO, having also returned to work at Naftogaz, where he is holding the position of Director for Business Development. He is involved in the multilateral working group focused on developing, implementing and monitoring the efficiency of reforms, which are under way in accordance with commitments undertaken within the framework of the Energy Community. Work for Naftogaz.

In 2002, Vitrenko was involved in the project of creating a vertically integrated oil company (VIOC) on the basis of the state-owned enterprise Ukrnafta. However, in 2004, it was decided to create a VIOC on the basis of Naftogaz[6] Since then, the issue of control over Ukrnafta has remained unresolved. Vitrenko comments on this long-standing conflict between Naftogaz and the Privat Group on behalf of the state-owned company. In the mid-2000s, he was involved in attracting investment to Naftogaz. Since 2008, he has been involved in restructuring its debt.[7] Since 2014, when Vitrenko resumed work at Naftogaz, he has been involved in many high-profile initiatives aimed at reforming the energy sector and ensuring Ukraine's energy security:

• Diversifying gas supplies to Ukraine;[8]
• Filing a lawsuit with the Stockholm Arbitration Institute against Gazprom disputing the terms of gas transit through Ukraine;[9]
• Reforming Naftogaz.[7]

Ukrainian media paid much attention to Vitrenko in April 2014, when he was appointed Advisor to the Chairman of Naftogaz. This stimulated active discussion of his political views. However, even earlier, in November 2013, in his interview to the Ukrainian weekly magazine Vlast Deneg, Vitrenko expressed his clear support of pro-European ideas, underscoring that Ukraine belonged with the European Union.[7]

At February 2020, Vitrenko filed a lawsuit in Kyiv Pechersk court because of non-payment of his bonus for winning the above mentioned lawsuit against Gazprom like other his colleagues. At December 2020 Yuriy Vitrenko was invited to pass position of Ministe of energy and First Vice-Prime-Minister by the Shmyhal Government. For his candidacy, according to the legislation, the Parliament of Ukraine must vote, but since he had a conflict of interest due to a lawsuit between him and Naftogaz, most of the deputies did not want to support him even despite the promises of Vitrenko to reduce tariffs. Just a day before voting for the candidacy of Vitrenko, Naftogaz made a decision to issue government bonds for the entire amount of the award claimed by Vitrenko, namely 170 MLN Hryvnias to remove conflicts of interest. On 17 December 2020 the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) did not support the appointment of Vitrenko to the post of First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Energy, Vitrenko didn't unable to get enough votes - 186 out of the minimum required 226.[1] Four days later he was made acting Minister of Energy by the Shmyhal Government.[1]

During the term of office of the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Vitrenko in less than a month fell into several loud scandals at once: he almost instantly allowed an increase in electricity by 30% for the population, which caused outrage among the population and numerous protests throughout the country, and also canceled several pro-European reforms in the coal and gas industries.

Vitrenko offered to buy gas from "independent gas companies" from Russia. To put it simply, buy gas directly from Russia. The economic benefits of such purchases were previously announced by the oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Vitrenko imposed restrictions on the functioning of the gas market in Ukraine, instead of using the modern European practice of regulating prices using European market instruments.

On the website of the President of Ukraine, activists of the "Tariff Genocide movement" created a petition demanding the return of the preferential tariff of 0.9 hryvnia for the first 100 kWh, as well as dismiss the acting Energy Minister Vitrenko.

On 6 January 2021 the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is investigating why the ex-manager of Naftogaz, Vitrenko, received bonuses in the amount of $ 7.2 million. It is speculated that this could have been an abuse of power.[10]

On 28 January 2021 parliament again failed to appoint Vitrenko as First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Energy, 204 deputies voted for, 45 against, 62 abstained, 38 did not vote.[11]

On 28 April 2021 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appointed Vitrenko as Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz for one year.[12] The following day Herman Halushchenko replaced Vitrenko as Minister of Energy.[2]

Vitrenko is married. Vitrenko met his future wife Iryna while studying at the university. Iryna also graduated from the Kyiv National Economic University cum laude and later studied abroad. She has occupied senior positions at different international corporations in Ukraine, Poland, and the UK. Yuriy and Iryna have three children: Christina (born in 2004), Gregory (born in 2007) and Margaret (born in 2015).

Since childhood, Vitrenko has been active in sports. He was training at the football academy of FC Dynamo Kyiv. Vitrenko is fond of skiing and is a member of the Ukrainian Ski Club. Vitrenko's hobbies also include kite surfing and golf.

• Yuriy Vitrenko on Facebook
• Official site AYA Capital
• Executive Profile Yuriy Vitrenko on Bloomberg Businessweek
• Naftogaz Sees Radical Increase in Gas Price for Ukrainian Homes
• Юрий Витренко: Непослушный сын (in Russian)
• Юрій Вітренко: Ми зможемо провести зиму без російського газу (in Ukrainian)
• План Маршалла для України (in Ukrainian)
• YURIY VITRENKO'S LIBRARY https://www.vitrenkolibrary.com/en/