Valeria Gontareva is the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.
Gontaryeva was born on Oct. 20, 1964. in Dnipropetrovsk. She graduated in 1987 from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and in 1997 from Kyiv National Economic University with a master’s degree in Economics. After obtaining her degree in 1987, she was a junior researcher at the Ukrainian Centre for Standardization and Metrology for two years. From 1989 to 1993 Gontaryeva worked as a design engineer in the institute “Hiprostrommashyna”.
In 1993 Gontaryeva started her career financial institutions and she held top positions in the Kyiv branches of ING Bank and Societe Generale. In 1996 she became director of resource management Societe Generale in Ukraine and in 2001 deputy chairman of ING Bank. From 2007 to 2014, she served as Chairwoman of then Investment Capital Ukraine (now ICU), Kyiv based financial group.
On June 19, 2014 Gontaryeva replaced Stepan Kubiv as Chairwoman of the National Bank of Ukraine. She became the first female to lead the bank.
