Juggling a family and a career, Ukrainian women are beginning to climb the corporate ladder in search of financial independence and stability.
Tetyana Radomyslskaya embodies what appears to be an emerging trend: more women entering the traditionally male-dominated world of business in Ukraine.
Juggling a family and a career, Ukrainian women are beginning to climb the corporate ladder in search of financial independence and stability. Their paths are assisted by an increasing number of foreign companies — some of which have long histories of providing equal employment opportunities to women. But women also appear to be joining Ukrainian companies in greater numbers as well.
“In the last three years, I have met more women in top positions,” Radomyslskaya says. Before then, she remembers encountering sexism. Men have said to her in job interviews that “there is no doubt about your professional knowledge and your abilities, but there are some concerns that you are a woman,” she says.
Statistics are lacking, but the anecdotal evidence does suggest a clear trend of greater workforce participation by women.
Associate Professor of Kyiv Mohyla Academy’s Business School, Mychailo Wynnyckyj, believes that the boost of women in business is a result of more Ukrainian women studying foreign languages, one of the skills employers look for when hiring. Wynnyckyj points to the disproportional number of women studying at the Kyiv National Linguistic University, which includes 70 percent of female students to 30 percent of male students.
“Demand for talented individuals for high level positions is extremely high, especially for people with both foreign language skills and knowledge of Western business practices,” he says.
According to a study conducted by the League of Professional Women in partnership with the International Institute of Sociology and funded by USAID, since 2002, women in Ukraine are becoming more involved in business and entrepreneurship. However, the study found that Ukrainian women are still less active in business than their Western counterparts.
Recent United Nations research indicates that women in Ukraine only control 5-10 percent of economic resources and make up 38 percent of the total number of business self-starters. According to the research published in 2008, Ukrainian women manage 26 percent of small enterprises, and 15 and 12 percent of medium and large ones, respectively.
Although, Ukrainian women are slowly making up larger numbers of the workforce than before, their role continues to be too low, according to the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine.
Despite this, more Ukrainian women are benefiting from the growing market, says Radomyslskaya, who believes there has been a surge in the number of female professionals. As more multinational companies open offices in Ukraine, women are getting hired. They are the majority of the workforce at some places, such as the Ernst & Young office in Kyiv, according to Anna Kozeletska, human resources manager of Ernst & Young.
Radomyslskaya, chief financial officer at KDD Group, a Ukrainian realestate developer listed on the London Stock Exchange’s secondary market, believes the influx of foreign companies has helped Ukrainian women gain valuable business experience. These companies bring Western business standards to Ukraine and teach women good business practices, something that didn’t exist in the past, Radomyslskaya says.
“Many young people have the theoretical business knowledge, but you need the experience. For young women starting out, they need internships and job placements at one of the multinational companies that are properly structured. They need to learn how to work in an organization that is properly managed so that this knowledge can be retained and used later on in her career,” she says.
A graduate of Kyiv State Economic University, she began her career at Ernst & Young and later worked at KPMG as an audit assistant. She soon moved on to become chief financial officer of Rise, an agribusiness company. She was later chief financial officer of Slobozhanska Budivelna Keramika (SBK), a brick producing company in Ukraine. Radomyslskaya is now one of the youngest chief financial officers in Ukraine. She says working at multinationals, in her case Ernst & Young and KMPG, helps women develop important skills.
“Once you learn how to make a deal with a big European bank you can do it again, and once you implement a budget in one company you can do it in another,” Radomyslskaya said. “You will know how to do it in the future.”
Radomyslskaya thinks women in Ukraine have the opportunity to rise up within the emerging corporate structure. “Maybe a glass ceiling exists when a woman does not have the motivation to go forward,” she says, noting that being a woman has not stopped Yulia Tymoshenko, the nation’s prime minister.
“In business there are new opportunities, new challenges, new partners and new contacts,” she says. “I have the possibility to make decisions every day and some sort of freedom on decision making and building my life.”
Many Ukrainian women are feeling the same way. The Kyiv metro is filled with women heading off to work in power suits and high heels eager to contribute to society. “The challenges of working are not any different than a man’s, but it is about getting men to realize that women can work too,” Radomyslskaya says.
Natalie Gurieva, Ukraine’s representative for The Leading Hotels of The World, an international association that includes more than 450 hotels, says she has professionally benefited from Ukraine’s rapidly growing market and sees more women in the workplace, especially in business.
Gurieva manages the Ukrainian market for the association, which includes the new Opera Hotel in Kyiv and the Donbass Palace Hotel in Donetsk.
“It isn’t easy to start but now there are more opportunities for women,” she says. She credits her internships in Holland and Britain for opening up her eyes to the outside world and getting her excited about business.
Since Leading Hotels of the World expanded into Ukraine in March 2008, under Gureiva’s leadership, the Ukrainian market has shown the strongest results in Eastern Europe, she says. “It is hard work, but I cannot devote my whole life to just my family. I have to be creative, I have to develop new skills, and business allows me to unlock my potential.”
Gurieva says her family life has suffered because she decided to pursue a career. “My husband wanted me to stay home, but I couldn’t do it,” she says. Gurieva, now divorced, has struggled to find a balance between her professional and personal life. “But now my daughter sees me and she wants a career and knows she doesn’t need a man to support her.”
Alexandra Stadnyk can be reached at [email protected] or 4964563 ext. 1092.
