U.S.-UKRAINE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Executive Director, US Center for Citizen Diplomacy
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- Advisor
- Attorney ( Ret. ) and Former Judge, U.S. Court of Federal Claims
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- Advisor
- Director, North Central Texas SBDC President, Rubicon Investments, Inc
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- Advisor
- Executive Vice President for Science, Personal Care Products Council
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- Member of the Board of Directors
- Senior Associate in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at CSIS
Edward C. Chow, senior associate in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at CSIS, is an international energy expert with 40 years of industry experience. He has worked in Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe, Russia, Black Sea and Caspian regions. He has developed government policy and business strategy, while advising governments, international financial institutions, major oil companies, and leading multinational corporations. He has negotiated successfully multibillion-dollar oil and gas agreements and specializes in investments in emerging economies.
Chow spent 20 years with Chevron Corporation in headquarter and overseas assignments, including head of international external relations and country manager in China. Chow is a graduate of Ohio University with a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in international affairs. He has published articles in leading academic and foreign policy journals on global energy developments, spoken on energy at international conferences, universities, and think tanks in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, and appeared on major international media. He currently teaches at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Halyna Traversa is a retired attorney and former general counsel of Rexam Beverage Can Americas. Prior to assuming that position, she was senior international counsel at both Abbott Laboratories and Motorola, during which time she worked on international business transactions, including cross-border joint ventures, in countries including Ukraine. As a member of the board of Friends of Chernobyl Centers, U.S., she organized two medical shipments to a hospital east of the Chernobyl Zone. As an active member of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, in 2019 she curated the first ever Holodomor exhibit to be held in a Holocaust Museum in North America.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- President, Ukrainian - American Coordinating Council
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors
- Vice Chairman, Board of Directors / Retired Army Colonel, Former Assistant Director of US Catholic Conference of Bishops, Former Special Asst to Secretary of Defense for White House Liaison
John A. Kun has served the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation in several capacities since 1993. His responsibilities currently focus on financial and fundraising administration.
Mr. Kun holds a BA in History from Holy Cross College (Worcester, MA) and a Master's in Public Administration from Suffolk University (Boston, MA). His previous positions include assistant director of governmental relations for the Ukrainian National Association in Washington, D.C.; budget/management analyst for the Town of Arlington, Massachusetts; and marketing and sales capacities with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York City.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
John E. Hall, Jr. is one of the founding partners of Hall Booth Smith, and he is dedicated to making it the finest litigation firm in the Southeast.
John specializes in the defense of high exposure cases, including medical malpractice, batch claims, construction, commercial litigation, mass torts, transportation and products liability. During his legal career, he has tried more than 125 cases to resolution.
His expertise in high exposure birth trauma and catastrophic cases resulted in his being named National Counsel for several major insurance carriers. This National Counsel Program establishes a litigation approach, which enables a team of specialized attorneys to become involved and assist local counsel on high exposure cases at all phases of the legal process.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- President and CEO, HeartlandFamilyService.Org
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Jon Queen is a businessman who lived and worked in Ukraine for almost fifteen years prior to becoming a Board Member for the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation. During his time in Ukraine, Jon helped manage two Ukrainian investment banks and he co-owned and operated twelve Ukrainian biomass heat-power stations. Jon also helped create the Ukrainian-language online education technology company Learning.ua. A trained economist and former lawyer, Jon holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designations and he is a member of the Chartered Financial Analyst Association of Ukraine.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- President, Manor College
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- Advisor
- Associate Director of Device Development, Bristol - Myers Squibb
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- Advisor
- President, M Buryk Associates Producer, Made in Ukraine Tech Startup Edition
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- Advisor
- Director, Government Relations, Washington, D.C., SigmaBleyzer President and CEO, U.S. - Ukraine Business Council
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Member of the Board of Directors
- President
- Co - Founder and President of the U.S
Nadia McConnell is the co-founder and president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF). Born in Austria to two Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Red Army, McConnell immigrated to the United States with her parents in 1950. She has previously served as Director of Congressional Relations at the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and then as Deputy Assistant Administrator of NASA for Congressional Affairs in the Reagan Administration.
In 1991, McConnell shifted her focus to working for the development of democratic institutions, a free market economy, and human rights in Ukraine as well as the U.S.-Ukraine strategic relationship with the founding of USUF, a D.C.-based "do-tank" that has maintained a permanent presence in Ukraine since its inception. Over the past three decades, she has designed and managed approximately $60 million in programs for democracy development across all regions of Ukraine.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Senior Manager, Management Sciences for Health
The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation supports the people of Ukraine in their quest for freedom, democracy, a free market economy, and human rights.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Senior Fellow, Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Principal
- Acting Secretary
Robert McConnell, Principal at R.A. McConnell & Associates and Co-Founder of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, serves as the Director of External Relations for the Foundation's Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).
McConnell served as Legislative Director for Congressman John J. Rhodes (R-AZ). He was a partner in the Scottsdale firm of Sparks, Siler & McConnell, and later the Tempe firm of Stieger, Helm, Kyle & McConnell. In 1981, he was nominated by President Reagan as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, holding the position throughout Reagan's first term. He then was Vice President of CBS, heading the Washington Office for three years until he joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. In 2011, McConnell established R.A. McConnell & Associates, a government affairs and crisis management firm.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chairman of the Board, Board of Directors
Rusty Brooks administered the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government International Center programs for eleven years to help governments throughout the world be more effective, efficient, and responsive. During his nearly four-decade career at the University of Georgia, he worked extensively in international settings with both governmental and nongovernmental entities in public administration and economic development sectors, as well as in efforts that support heritage and cultural tourism. Dr. Brooks has worked on international development activities in over forty countries, including extensive experience in Ukraine. In 1998, he was named a Salzburg Fellow for Rural Development. Dr. Brooks was also named a Walter Barnard Hill Fellow at the University of Georgia for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach in 2012.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Director of Creative & Marketing at Jamestown
Sandi Turner is the Director of Creative & Marketing at Jamestown. Prior to joining Jamestown in 2017, she worked in creative, marketing, and communications for over 20 years, including as a consultant for Jamestown. Ms. Turner has executed communications strategies for a variety of organizations and specializes in building marketing and communications departments from the ground up. She has built marketing programs for privately-held multinational corporations, local governments, an international non-governmental organization, a national non-profit, and her own entrepreneurial ventures. Ms. Turner has consistently been recognized nationally for her creative work, winning 13 Savvy Awards since 2007 from the national marketing organization 3CMA, among other honors. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Georgia in 1992.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Principal, Wilson Walsh George Ross
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- Advisor
- Director, Ukrainian Federal Credit Union
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- Advisor
- Professor of Economics, University of Maryland System ( Towson University ) Senior Adjunct Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- President, Gittins & Associates, Inc