You're reading: 10 rising stars of Kyiv’s legal world

Below is a Kyiv Post ranking Top 10 Rising Stars. To view Top 10 Legal Stars, click here. To find out how both rankings were completed, read a story Legal eagles shine.

TOP 10 RISING STARS

Anna Babych

Position: partner at Vasil Kisil & Partners.

Practices: corporate and mergers and acquisitions, antitrust and competition, capital markets.

Age: 29

Experience: 10 years

Education: National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, 2005. BPP Law School, GDL, 2012
Biggest strengths and achievements: Organizing skills developed to the level where I can successfully combine partnership, client care work, ongoing studying in law school in London and pro-bono work in  Kyiv.

Biggest strengths and achievements: Organizing skills developed to the level where I can successfully combine partnership, client care work, ongoing studying in law school in London and pro-bono work in Kyiv.

Clients: Danone group, UkrMediaHolding, MTC Ukraine, Arricano group, SEB group, Ucrafarma group and many others.

Maksym Cherkasenko

Position: partner at Arzinger.

Practices: corporate, mergers and acquisitions, real estate & construction, energy.

Age: 35

Experience: 14 years.

Education: Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University, Faculty of Law – 1994-1999. The National University of Economics of Kyiv, Faculty of Finance – 1993-1998. Ukrainian School of Political Studies – 2011.

Biggest strengths and achievements: Advised on many successfully implemented M&A and business restructuring projects, privatization and insolvency procedures.  Among them, the acquisition of a petrol stations network and petroleum-storage depots, restructuring of TNK-BP Ukraine, including bankruptcy of the Lysychansk oil refinery plant, full-scale legal support in the merger of milk market leaders – Galychyna and Kovelmoloko.

Clients: Rosatom, Cadogan Petroleum; China Minmetals, EVRAZ Group, Lafarge Gypsum; Ukrainian Development Company, Budhouse, Marti Holding, Strabag; Galychina, AGRICULTURE – Suntrade; Porshe Holding, Johnson Controls, Shwarzmuller, Scania.

Nazar Chernyavsky

Position: partner at Sayenko Kharenko.

Practices: international finance, debt restructuring, capital markets, intellectual property.

Age: 29

Experience: 11 years.

Education: Master of laws degree from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University School of International Law; Intercollegiate LL.M. program at Queen Mary College of the University of London.

Biggest strengths and achievements: recognized in banking and finance by The Legal 500, IFLR 1000, PLC Which Lawyer?, The Best Lawyers International; ranked among top five in Capital Markets & Securities by Ukrainian Law Firms 2012 by Yuridicheskaya Practika.

Clients: BNP Paribas, Citibank, Credit Suisse, EBRD, Ferrexpo, Gazprombank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Bank, UBS, UkrSibbank, Visa, VTB Capital

Olyana Gordiyenko

Position: counsel at the Kyiv office of Baker & McKenzie.

Practices: corporate and mergers and acquisition.

Age: 30

Experience: 11 years

Education: Olyana received her master’s of law degree from Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University in 2004.

Biggest strengths and achievements: Gordiyenko is acting for international investors and corporations in domestic and cross-border corporate/M&A transactions within and outside of Ukraine. She has been concentrating recently on the private equity front as well as has been engaged in public M&A and oil & gas transactions as well, which are mainstream at the moment. 

Clients: EastOne, Cadogan Petroleum plc, Advent International, Horizon Capital, PepsiAmericas, Inc and PepsiCo, Austrian Airlines, Aerosvit Airlines, L.I.T.A.T. Group, CJSC “YUZHNO-OKTYABRSKI GLYNY “YUG”, Fortis, AIG Life, Donbas Clays, MTC.

Oleh Malskyy

Position: partner with AstapovLawyers International Law Group.

Practices: mergers and acquisitions, corporate and antitrust.

Age: 33

Experience: 11 years

Education: Lviv National University (Ukraine), the World Trade Institute (Switzerland) and Georgetown University (USA).

Biggest strengths and achievements: They are systematic targeted efforts and strategic thinking. Most remarkable achievement is M&A Practice development through three crisis years. As a result AstapovLawyers was named M&A Law Firm of 2012 by the Legal Awards (Yuridicheskaya Practika/Kommersant).

Clients: British American Tobacco, Baxter, Danone, Nemiroff, Marshall Capital, Concorde Capital, Pepsico.

Oleh Marchenko

Position: managing partner at Ulysses.

Practices: tax, banking & finance, dispute resolution.

Age: 38

Experience: 15 years

Education: Law Degree from National Economic University; Degrees in Sociology and Economics from National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

Biggest strengths and achievements: adhering to integrity, skills and diligence in practicing law in Ukraine and avoiding “shortcuts” practices is a great challenge for the legal community, national or international. Ulysses is determined to meet this challenge even if it comes at a short-term disadvantage.

Clients:  AAK, Aspen, Astelit, Avaya, Bayer, Citibank, DCH, Gambro, Hilti, Lafarge, Medoff, Microsoft, Swiss Life, Teva, UkrSibbank (Paribas), UniCredit, Viterra.

Vitaliy Radchenko

Position: senior associate at CMS Cameron McKenna, Kyiv.

Practice: energy and projects.

Age: 29

Experience: 9 years

Education:  Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine, Civil and International Private Law, Master of Law, 2005. 

Biggest strengths and achievements: Profound in-depth understanding of technical and regulatory aspects of various industries within energy sector. In recent years worked for a number of major international oil and gas companies on a few most significant deals in Ukraine’s natural gas and renewable energy sectors.

Clients: could not disclose.

Olexiy Soshenko       

Position: counsel at the Kyiv office of Clifford Chance.                    

Practice: banking and finance.

Age: 41

Experience: 15 years

Education: Graduated with a degree in law from National Law Academy of Ukraine in 1996, and received an L.L.M. degree from the State University of Minnesota Law School in 1997.

Biggest strengths and achievements: Soshenko has a significant experience of practicing law in Ukraine representing both lending institutions and borrowers in various types of financings including project finance, real estate financings, acquisition finance and pre-export finance, as well as M&A transactions in the banking sphere. Olexiy is recommended as a leading expert in major legal directories including Chambers Global and Europe, IFLR 1000, Legal 500.

Clients: EBRD, IFC, Sberbank of Russia, ING Bank N.V, UniCredit Bank AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, UBS, FUIB, Prominvestbank.

Andriy Stelmashchuk

Position: partner at Vasil Kisil & Partners.

Practices: dispute resolution, tax.

Age: 30

Experience: 10 years

Education: Master’s degree in Law from National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, 2005. 

Biggest strengths and achievements: They are my colleagues, with whom I achieve high results, whom I consider professionals of a high level, whom I can rely on in any professional questions.

Clients: Shell, BNP Paribas, Sberbank of Russia, Banka Citadele, Swedbank.

Oksana Voynarovska

Position: partner at Vasil Kisil & Partners.

Practices: labor and employment, litigation, private client.

Age: 33

Experience: 11 years

Education: Ivan Franko Lviv National University, 2001.
Biggest strengths and achievements: partnership in a law firm number one in Ukraine.
Clients: Google, Coca Cola, Phillips, Thompson Reuters.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].