Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce the launch of a new practice-based program to train emerging leaders from Ukraine. The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program will welcome three mid-career practitioners for a 10-month immersive academic experience at Stanford University this fall. During the duration of their residency, the fellows will bolster their academic knowledge, build connections across campus, receive mentorship from leading faculty members, and work on a dedicated fellowship project.

Fellows will hail from both inside and outside of government working as policymakers, legal professionals, entrepreneurs, and civil society leaders. They will be selected based on their professional track record, contributions to their field, and the scope of their anticipated fellowship project. The hope is that they will emerge with a deeper academic foundation and stronger network to make a greater contribution to democratic, political and social development in Ukraine and the broader region.

"As the political and security situation continues to shift in and around Ukraine, it's more important than ever to support sound principles of good governance,” said Michael McFaul, the director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institue (FSI). “With CDDRL's commitment to civil society, FSI’s deep expertise in the region and Stanford University's unparalleled opportunities for scholarship, we anticipate that this program will nurture a new generation of dedicated and effective leaders."

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program joins two other practice-based programs at CDDRL, which include the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program and the Leadership Academy for Development. All of these programs have a similar goal of connecting practitioners to academic knowledge and have built a global network of over 500 professionals committed to democratic development. Collectively these programs highlight CDDRL’s unique commitment to train practitioners from across the developing world, which also helps to deepen the Center’s understanding of democratic conditions around the world.

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program is CDDRL’s first yearlong global fellowship program, and will allow fellows to enroll in Stanford courses and work on a concrete project that will be presented at the end of their fellowship. While they will be based at CDDRL, the fellows will also benefit from connections to other academic units across campus as well as the broader Silicon Valley community.

“CDDRL is very happy to initiate the new Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program,” said Francis Fukuyama the Mosbacher Director at CDDRL and Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI. “Ukraine is a country that has been seeking to establish viable democratic institutions and to fight corruption, and is also at the center of a geopolitical struggle. Stanford can play a very important role in helping to build intellectual capital there.”

Interested applicants will have through Feb. 15, 2017 to apply and must meet a firm set of criteria that can be found here. Fellows will receive a $70,000 stipend for the 10-month fellowship program and a supplement for additional costs and relocation.

Stanford’s John S. Knight (JSK) Fellow Oleksandr Akymenko (2015-16) and Kateryna Akymenko, JSK Affiliate (2015-16) conceptualized the program as a way to connect Stanford with practitioners in Ukraine and contribute to the reformation process in the country. The program is funded by generous support from Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk and Tomas Fiala.

WNISEF is a regional private equity fund, a pioneer in Ukraine and Moldova with more than two decades of successful experience in investing in small and medium-sized companies. WNISEF is supported by the United States Agency for International Development.

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is a civic activist, Ukrainian musician, the lead vocalist and founder of the band “Okean Elzy“. Vakarchuk is also the founder of a charity fund called “Lyudi Maybutnyogo” (People of the Future) and co-founder of the Center for Economic Strategy, an independent policy think tank dedicated to supporting reforms and sustainable economic growth in Ukraine. He was a Yale World Fellow in 2015.

Tomas Fiala is the  Chief Executive Officer of Dragon Capital, a leading investment bank in Ukraine. Fiala has over twenty years’ experience in Central and Eastern European securities markets. He served as elected President of the European Business Association (2010-’15) where he lead the top association for foreign businesses in Ukraine uniting over 900 companies with more than a million employees. In October 2016, Fiala was elected to the Board of Transparency International Ukraine.

For more information about the program and to apply, please visit the program page. 

For the press release in Ukrainian click here. 

To download the flyer in Ukrainian click here. 

To download the flyer in English click here.