Name: Alina Sviderska
Age: 27
Education: National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Cambridge University (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
Profession: lawyer with EasyBusiness, President of the Cambridge Society of Ukraine
Did you know? Alina Sviderska wanted to create a shelter for homeless animals when she was a child.
Alina Sviderska never dreamed of becoming a lawyer, but she’s always had a sense of what is fair. Now she’s working for EasyBusiness, a non-profit organization that aims to create a level playing field for business in Ukraine by improving the country’s regulatory environment.
However, joining the EasyBusiness team was one of the biggest challenges she’s ever faced.
“I had the boldness to start something new in my career,” Sviderska told the Kyiv Post. “I decided to leave an amazing law firm and went to a newly created non-profit organization – with no funding – in 2014.”
But her decision has already proved to be the right one. The most rewarding part of career has become the team and its results, according to Sviderska.
“I love that with our great team we manage to help with the adoption of sometimes difficult, unpopular but necessary decisions in our country,” she says, adding that people joined the organization not for money, but for the “ideas, and positive changes.”
“We’re all friends in EasyBusiness,” Sviderska said.
Together with the team, Sviderska has helped to prepare some 30 draft laws that have eased excessive business regulation and reduced its administrative burden. For instance, EasyBusiness cooperated with lawmakers on preparing a draft law on simplifying the business environment in 2015. They also worked on a law on protecting investors’ rights, which aims to strengthen the rights of minority investors.
Following her sense of fairness, Sviderska decided to enroll in the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, where she studied law. She then went on to study in the United Kingdom, where she received an M.A. in law from Cambridge University in 2012. After returning to Ukraine, she worked as legal adviser at law firm Clifford Chance, and was an adviser to Aivaras Abromavicius, who headed Ukraine’s Economy Ministry until his resignation in February.
Sviderska also joined the group of Western-educated Ukrainian activists who launched the Professional Government Initiative in March 2014. She believes these people are “slowly penetrating the system,” and says that she can already see a difference in management and the kinds of decisions being made.
They “fight with populism and are more transparent,” Sviderska explains. Even though the changes she wants to see in the country are not happening at lightning speed, her motivation is to work with honest and responsible people, she says.
“I love achieving results with such people, and I love helping them to achieve noble aims. There is nothing better than exchange of positive vibes while building something great,” she says.
