Victor Pinchuk

Early life and career

Pinchuk was born in 1960 in Kiev to Jewish parents who moved to the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk. He graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute with a doctorate in industrial engineering in 1987. Three years later, he founded the Interpipe Company on the basis of his patented innovations, which were adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the USSR.

Interpipe is a major producer of seamless pipes and railway wheels. In 2004, Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, two of Ukraine's richest men, acquired the Kryvorizhstal steel factory for about $800 million. Later, the first Tymoshenko Government reversed this sale, and held a nationally-televised repeat auction that netted $4.8 billion. In 2006, Pinchuk founded an investment advisory company, EastOne. Its portfolio includes industrial assets such as production of pipes and tubes, rail car wheels, specialty steels and alloys, machinery, as well as media.

Pinchuk was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament between 1998 and 2006 for Labour Ukraine. He left politics after he came to the conclusion that Ukraine had reached a level of development when business and politics should be separated.

Pinchuk is a member of the Board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of the International Advisory Council of Brookings Institution and of the Corporate Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Pinchuk holds a share of VS Energy International Ukraine together with Mikhail Spektor and Igor Kolomoisky.

In 2015, Pinchuk brought a $2 billion civil action against fellow Ukrainian oligarchs Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov in the High Court of Justice in London over the 2004 purchase of a Ukrainian mining company. Allegations made include murder and bribery. In January 2016, an undisclosed out of court settlement was reached just before the trial was due to start.

Philanthropy

Pinchuk has supported philanthropic projects in Ukraine. In 2006, he consolidated these activities under the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is now considered the largest private Ukrainian philanthropic foundation. Its projects include giving $150,000 to the Trump Foundation as speaking fee in 2015, the creation of a network of modern neonatal centres throughout Ukraine, cooperation programs with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the ANTIAIDS Foundation of his wife Olena Pinchuk, the creation of the Kyiv School of Economics, a cooperation with the Aspen Institute, the opening of the first large scale contemporary art centre in Ukraine PinchukArtCentre, the production and promotion of a film with Steven Spielberg on the Holocaust in Ukraine, and support of local Jewish communities.

In June 2009, Pinchuk organized the Paul McCartney free concert on Independence Square in Kiev in front of 500,000 people. As an initiative of the Pinchuk Art Center, in December 2009, Pinchuk announced a new $100,000 prize for artists under the age of 35. The Future Generation Art Prize is awarded every two years and is open to any young artist who applies online. Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Koons, artists whose work Pinchuk collects, serve as mentors to the finalists and the winner.

In February 2013, Pinchuk committed to giving half or more of his fortune during his lifetime and beyond to philanthropic causes, joining the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic initiative founded in 2010 by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Pinchuk has donated from 10 to 25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation between 1994 and 2005. Emails released by Judicial Watch and obtained through FOIA requests showed that Pinchuk had been invited to dine at Hillary Clinton's home during her tenure at the State department, despite her spokesman's previous denial that they had met during that time.

In November 2014 in Kyev, Pinchuk was presented with the 2014 Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Award for his work in fostering Ukrainian-Jewish relations.

Yalta European Strategy

In 2004, Pinchuk created Yalta European Strategy (YES) - an international independent organization that is promoting Ukraine joining the European Union. Its annual summer meeting in Yalta is a Ukraine-EU forum for debate and policy recommendations development. After the Crimean Crisis of 2014 this meeting is taking place in Kiev. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Stefan Fule, Paul Krugman, Alexei Kudrin, Shimon Peres, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Larry Summers and other political and business leaders have attended.

Pinchuk promotes closer ties between Ukraine and the EU. He is an active participant in the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Personal life

Victor Pinchuk is married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of the second president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Olena Pinchuk runs the ANTIAIDS Foundation, which focuses on prevention and retroviral distribution and AIDS care in Ukraine. She and Pinchuk are friends of singer Elton John and former US President Bill Clinton, whose 65th birthday party Pinchuk attended in Los Angeles. Victor Pinchuk has three daughters and a son.

Pinchuk spent more than $6 million on his 50th birthday party in the French ski resort of Courchevel, flying in Cirque du Soleil and chef Alain Ducasse.

Rankings

Forbes ranked him No. 1250 on the list of the wealthiest people in the world in 2016, with a fortune of US $1.44 billion. Pinchuk was listed as one of the "2010 Time 100 - The World's Most Influential People" in Time Magazine. He was ranked No. 38 on ArtReview magazine's 2013 Power 100 ranking of people in contemporary art.