The Kyiv Post, the world’s top source of English-language news about Ukraine since 1995, has launched a four-member Friends of Kyiv Post advisory board to help keep the newspaper editorially independent and financially strong.
Initially, the board will include four members, but is expected to expand in the future.
In announcing the advisory board, Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner said that the four board members — Diane Francis, Marko Suprun, Cornelius Granig and Nataliya Bugayova — have great ideas that will improve the Kyiv Post.
“This is a prestigious group. All four know the issues confronting Ukraine today and all share a passion for great, independent journalism,” Bonner said. “We welcome their expertise and advice on how the Kyiv Post can improve and uphold the highest standards of ethical, fair and quality journalism.”
The board members are appointed by the chief editor, subject to approval by Kyiv Post owner and publisher Mohammad Zahoor.
The members are:
Diane Francis
The Canadian-American columnist and author is editor-at-large with the National Post in Canada and writes frequently for the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., where she is a non-resident senior fellow. Her many books include the 2013 title “Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country” and her 1986 book “Controlling Interest – Who Owns Canada.” She lives in Toronto, Canada.
Marko Suprun
Marko Suprun, a Canadian-Ukrainian, and his wife, Dr. Ulana Suprun, Ukraine’s acting minister of health, were founders of Patriot Defence, a civic movement that provides medical training to civilian and military professionals to help support Ukraine’s soldiers fighting against Russia’s invasion in 2014. The group distributed medical kits that “saved thousands of lives,” according to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who conferred upon them Ukrainian citizenship on July 11, 2015. Occasionally, he co-hosts the English language digest of StopFake, a program of the Kyiv Mohyla University’s School of Journalism, which has won international praise for its groundbreaking work debunking and dismembering Russian disinformation about Ukraine as well as sometimes co-hosting the “Ukraine Calling” English language radio program on Hromadske Radio in Kyiv. He is a founding member of #BABYLON’13. He holds a masters of arts from Columbia University in the City of New York and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Cornelius Granig
Cornelius Granig of Vienna, Austria, is the managing partner of the advisory firm K-ADVISORS, which operates in several Central and Eastern European countries and focuses on the digitalization and modernization of the energy, industrial, healthcare and financial services sector.
Granig and his partners are providing services in the area of cybersecurity, anti-fraud, IT and business intelligence in close cooperation with law enforcement agencies.
Granig is also the president of the Corporate Culture Institute, an Austrian think tank that focuses in its activities on the corporate implementation of high ethical standards, diversity programs, and a commitment to compliance with the law and policy.
Granig also worked as CEO of Siemens and as deputy CEO of Raiffeisen Bank Aval in Ukraine and was more than a decade in management positions in IBM Central & Eastern Europe.
Granig started his professional career as a radio journalist at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna.
Nataliya Bugayova
Nataliya Bugayova is the development director of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. She served as Kyiv Post CEO from August 2014 to December 2015 and also was chief of staff to former Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta, appointed after the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014. She has a master’s degree in public diplomacy from Harvard University. She also completed her undergraduate degree in East Asian studies from Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv.
About the Kyiv Post
The Kyiv Post has been owned since 2009 by Mohammad Zahoor, a United Kingdom citizen and native of Pakistan.
The Kyiv Post currently employs 40 people and earns most of its revenue through advertising, subscriptions and events. Kyiv Post journalists started a non-profit organization, the Media Development Foundation in 2013 to help raise money for investigative journalism, journalism exchanges and training.
“Ukraine deserves top-notch journalism and the Kyiv Post plays an important role. There are more great stories out there than we have resources to cover,” Bonner said. “The advisory board has tremendous connections and ideas, so we hope they can help us improve journalistically and help our bottom line as we search for grants to keep the newsroom strong and well-staffed to better serve our readers.”
