Natalie Jaresko
Former Minister of Finance, Ukraine
Chairperson of the Aspen Institute Kyiv Supervisory Board
NATALIE A. JARESKO is a recognized International Finance Executive with successful transformational experience in the private sector, public service, and non-governmental organizations. She is a force for positive change as a result of her ardent desire to achieve sustainable growth and to improve the quality of people’s lives. She thinks strategically and is deeply experienced at driving efficient operations. She has been the leader others seek for challenging negotiations, value creation, collaboration and alignment, fundraising and increasing investment. Natalie has over 30 years of successful leadership experience, navigating through numerous crisis periods, applying passion, analysis and data driven solutions.
Natalie recently served five years (2017-2022) as the Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. She led the sustainable negotiated exit from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, while working to restore the Island’s fiscal health, enabling a return to capital markets. Notwithstanding a critically difficult period of environmental and political instability during a pandemic, she resourcefully focused limited budgetary resources on improving critical essential services such as education, public safety, and health, while strengthening sustainable budgetary practices, financial reporting, and transparency.
Natalie served as Minister of Finance of Ukraine (2014-16) at one of the most difficult times in Ukraine’s history, rocked by a deep recession, Russian occupation and war on part of its territory. She led the successful negotiation and implementation of the largest IMF program in the institution’s history, including reduction of budget deficits, introduction of budgetary transparency, improved corporate governance at state owned banks, reduction of monopolistic practices in the economy, as well as a complex sovereign and sovereign guaranteed debt restructuring. As a result of her leadership, Ukraine enjoyed its first signs of economic recovery, including stabilization of the domestic currency, growth in banking system deposits, sharply reduced inflation, and growth in industrial production.
She spent two decades in the private equity industry focused on small and medium-sized business in the region, as co-founder and CEO of Horizon Capital, a fund manager with over $600 million under management, and as President and CEO of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund. Natalie led the fundraising campaigns, served on the investment committee, and worked hand in hand with portfolio companies to successfully grow their businesses in a way that would support their shareholders, as well as local communities – an early social impact investment experience.
Natalie has extensive board experience as a Board member in many private portfolio companies, ranging from banks to insurance and from consumer goods to agriculture. She began her career in Federal government serving in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. from 1989- 92, as Chief of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine from 1992. Natalie was responsible for building a new economic relationship between the United States and newly independent Ukraine. Her passion for development finance stemmed from these experiences in post-communist economies evolving out of the former Soviet Union.
Ms. Jaresko has done extensive public speaking and media appearances, including CNN and CSPAN. She has guest lectured at Stanford Business School, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ukrainian Catholic University, Notre Dame, Cambridge University, University of Michigan. Two Presidents of Ukraine have awarded her for her service to Ukraine. She is a Certified Public Accountant. She also serves as Chairperson of Aspen Institute Kyiv, a not-for-profit Board.
NATALIE A. JARESKO is a recognized International Finance Executive with successful transformational experience in the private sector, public service, and non-governmental organizations. She is a force for positive change as a result of her ardent desire to achieve sustainable growth and to improve the quality of people’s lives. She thinks strategically and is deeply experienced at driving efficient operations. She has been the leader others seek for challenging negotiations, value creation, collaboration and alignment, fundraising and increasing investment. Natalie has over 30 years of successful leadership experience, navigating through numerous crisis periods, applying passion, analysis and data driven solutions.
Natalie recently served five years (2017-2022) as the Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. She led the sustainable negotiated exit from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, while working to restore the Island’s fiscal health, enabling a return to capital markets. Notwithstanding a critically difficult period of environmental and political instability during a pandemic, she resourcefully focused limited budgetary resources on improving critical essential services such as education, public safety, and health, while strengthening sustainable budgetary practices, financial reporting, and transparency.
Natalie served as Minister of Finance of Ukraine (2014-16) at one of the most difficult times in Ukraine’s history, rocked by a deep recession, Russian occupation and war on part of its territory. She led the successful negotiation and implementation of the largest IMF program in the institution’s history, including reduction of budget deficits, introduction of budgetary transparency, improved corporate governance at state owned banks, reduction of monopolistic practices in the economy, as well as a complex sovereign and sovereign guaranteed debt restructuring. As a result of her leadership, Ukraine enjoyed its first signs of economic recovery, including stabilization of the domestic currency, growth in banking system deposits, sharply reduced inflation, and growth in industrial production.
She spent two decades in the private equity industry focused on small and medium-sized business in the region, as co-founder and CEO of Horizon Capital, a fund manager with over $600 million under management, and as President and CEO of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund. Natalie led the fundraising campaigns, served on the investment committee, and worked hand in hand with portfolio companies to successfully grow their businesses in a way that would support their shareholders, as well as local communities – an early social impact investment experience.
Natalie has extensive board experience as a Board member in many private portfolio companies, ranging from banks to insurance and from consumer goods to agriculture. She began her career in Federal government serving in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. from 1989- 92, as Chief of the Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine from 1992. Natalie was responsible for building a new economic relationship between the United States and newly independent Ukraine. Her passion for development finance stemmed from these experiences in post-communist economies evolving out of the former Soviet Union.
Ms. Jaresko has done extensive public speaking and media appearances, including CNN and CSPAN. She has guest lectured at Stanford Business School, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ukrainian Catholic University, Notre Dame, Cambridge University, University of Michigan. Two Presidents of Ukraine have awarded her for her service to Ukraine. She is a Certified Public Accountant. She also serves as Chairperson of Aspen Institute Kyiv, a not-for-profit Board.