Editor’s Note: This Kyiv Post feature introduces readers to interesting expatriates who have chosen to make Ukraine their home. We welcome readers’ suggestions about expats to profile. Please send ideas to [email protected]
Luba Yurchyk
Nationality: American
Age: 45
Position/Activity: Investment banking, head of sales at Concorde Capital
Length of time in Ukraine: four months
Tips for succeeding in Ukraine: Patience and perseverance
Concorde Capital’s new head of sales Luba Yurchyk always knew she would someday return to Ukraine.
Her return in August coincided with a bearish investment market and during a period of consolidation among investment banks who’ve witnessed trading volumes dive and Ukrainian companies drop off investor radars.
Yet her recruitment appears to gel with Concorde CEO Igor Mazepa’s strategy to snap up top talent, mainly from other institutions phasing out operations in Ukraine, including the recently shuttered BG Capital.
The Lviv native emigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine when she was 10. She earned her undergraduate and post-graduate degrees at UCLA.
She’s done fixed income and equity sales in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris and Asia for such companies as, Avila Capital Markets, E*TRADE Capital Markets, Credit Lyonnais Securities and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell.
“They found me…I was very pleasantly surprised to have been contacted by Concorde Capital,” said Yurchyk, who most recently lived in New York. “I knew that one day there’ll come a time when there’ll be an opportunity to become involved with things in business in Ukraine.”
She said she wants to grow the business and attract new deals by transforming Concorde into a “vehicle of distribution of Ukrainian companies to international investors. Investment banking is still very much a people business, you must have a strong team and raise the level of communication that is accepted in the West,” she said.
She says she returned at the right time to promote Ukraine as a promising investment opportunity. She said institutional and international investors acknowledge banks like Concorde for staying on the market to provide on-the-ground coverage of opportunities.
“They appreciate us for staying in touch with what’s happening and help them understand what’s going on,” she said.
Working in a frontier market, Yurchyk admits that her learning curve is steep. To succeed, she mentioned the two most common words many successful expatriates echo: patience and perseverance.
“It’s very exciting, Concorde is at the vanguard. It isn’t just interested in making money, it’s also aiming to bringing capital markets to a higher level,” she said.
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Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
