Natalie Jaresko

Early and personal life

Jaresko was born on 24 April 1965 in Elmhurst, Illinois, the daughter of Mary (Maria), née Budziak, and John (Ivan) Jaresko, both Ukrainian immigrants to the United States. Her father was born in Poltava Oblast during the Holodomor, during which her kulak great-grandparents, Feofan and Natalia Brazhnyk, starved to death.

Jaresko was raised with two siblings, Katherine and John, in Wood Dale, Illinois. Although her family spoke mainly English, she attended Ukrainian school on Saturdays and the Ukrainian Orthodox church on Sundays. She is bilingual in English and Ukrainian. Residing in Ukrainian Village, Chicago, she studied accounting at DePaul University, earning a B.Sc. degree in 1987. She received a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1989.

In 2011, she and her husband, Ihor Figlus, divorced. She has two daughters who live in Ukraine.

Citizenship

Jaresko lived in Ukraine from 1992 to 2000, and returned in 2004. She received Ukrainian citizenship on 2 December 2014, the day of her appointment as Minister of Finance of Ukraine. She remains a U.S. citizen. Although the U.S. does not prohibit dual citizenship, Ukrainian law states that she must renounce her non-Ukrainian citizenship(s) within two years.

Career

Jaresko held several economics-related positions at the US Department of State in Washington, D.C., and eventually coordinated activities of the State Department, the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, the United States Trade Representative, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) in their economic relations with the Soviet Union and its successors. As part of her work she interacted with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Later from 1992 to 1995, she was the first Chief of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, responsible for strengthening economic cooperation between the two countries. She has been a governor of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 2003 she was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Princess Olga for her contributions to the Ukrainian economy.

Jaresko also held several key positions in the private business sector. In February 2001 she became President and Chief Executive Officer of Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which had been disbursing United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds to small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine and Moldova since 1995.

In 2006, she co-founded Horizon Capital, where she served as a Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer, which took over the management of WNISEF. In those positions she established and strengthened economic ties with Ukraine and Moldova. Horizon Capital managed two funds, the Emerging Europe Growth Fund aimed at institutional and individual investors in the west, and the USAID funded Western NIS Enterprise Fund which preceded Horizon Capital. After the divorce of Jaresko and Ihor Figlus, who was a limited partner in Horizon Capital, Horizon Capital litigated to maintain the confidentiality of its internal financial arrangements. When Jaresko left Horizon Capital in December 2014, it had about $600 million of Ukrainian investments under management.

Between 2005 and 2010 Jaresko was a member of President Viktor Yushchenko's Foreign Investors Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of the Ukrainian Center for Promotion of Foreign Investment under the auspices of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Ukrainian Minister of Finance

Nine months after the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Jaresko was approached by headhunters for the new Ukrainian government, and within days offered the post of Minister of Finance.

Early in Jaresko's term she made an outline agreement for a $40 billion four-year loan from the International Monetary Fund and Western countries.

In August 2015 Jaresko was instrumental to restructuring Ukraine's debts, including a partial write-off with a 20% haircut on Ukraine’s $18 billion privately-held government debt.

On 24 March 2016, shortly before she left office, she argued that the economy had to be depoliticized and Ukraine needed a technocratic government, and that she was willing to lead such a technocratic government. The Ukraine Today and Financial Times had reported speculation that Jaresko could become Ukraine's new Prime Minister, which was also suggested by former United States Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian Weekly reported that Jaresko had started forming a provisional technocratic Cabinet of Ministers the previous month.

Jaresko was rejected as a prime ministerial candidate by the governing coalition. When speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, was elected as Ukraine's new Prime Minister on 14 April 2016, he did not retain Jaresko in his new Cabinet.

After she left office, Jaresko said she believed the Ukraine macroeconomic situation had stabilized, and that Ukraine needed a further $25 billion of investment beyond the agreed IMF loans to "win over the hearts and minds of Ukrainian society” as the "immediate effects [of reform] on the population have been painful."

Later career

In May 2016, Jaresko became chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute unit in Kiev, a U.S. headquartered educational and policy studies NGO.

In March 20, 2017, she became the executive director of the Financial Oversight Board of Puerto Rico, imposed upon Puerto Ricans by the PROMESA bill. While the Island is subjected to austerity measures and massive privatization in order to restructure its economy and pay its 72 billion dollar debt, Jaresko will making $625,000 a year, and her traveling, moving and security costs will be covered by the Puerto Rican government.