Gontareva Valeria Oleksiyivna

Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine during reforms, architect of PrivatBank nationalization

Financier, investment banker, co-founder of the ICU investment group. Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine from June 2014 to May 2017 — during Poroshenko's presidency. Key achievements: cleansing the banking system (over 90 banks liquidated), transition to inflation targeting, independent monetary policy for the first time since independence. Main conflict of interest: before appointment, Gontareva headed ICU, which managed assets of Rinat Akhmetov’s structures — and immediately after her appointment, the NBU repeatedly made decisions concerning banks in the oligarchic sector. 

“Kurchenko cases,” Kolomoisky’s terror, and forced emigration to London

In 2019, the General Prosecutor’s Office summoned Gontareva for questioning in the “Kurchenko cases”; she refused to come and invited investigators to London, where she lives and works. Kolomoisky considers her the "main ideologue of the raider takeover of PrivatBank" and openly threatened her. In August 2019, she was hit by a car in London; in September, her daughter-in-law’s car was burned in Kyiv. Gontareva called this "terror" and accused Kolomoisky; he "joked" that "he promised a plane, not a car." No criminal suspicions proven in court have been brought against her; cases were closed or showed signs of political persecution. International partners and the IMF consistently supported her reformist course.