Things you didn't know about UCU employees...

Spot light on:

Michael Zienchuk

Michael poses for his newspaper photo

Michael Zienchuk was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario. His parents were big on education so in addition to regular school Michael and his brothers attended Ukrainian Saturday school. On top of that commitment, Michael also managed to pack in violin lessons, reaching a grade 10 level and completing the Royal Conservatory of Music performance exam before deciding that a career in music would not be in the cards. Being an athletic sort, Michael played many sports and was part of his highschool’s basketball team.

Michael is a well-traveled and worldly individual. As a student, he spent time working in Finland. His degrees include a PoliSci BA from the University of Waterloo, and MA in International Political Economy from the University of Reading (UK) and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business.

After graduation, he did a stint in Kyiv, Ukraine as an advisor to Roman Shpek, who was then the Minister of Economy in Ukraine. As part of this effort, Michael was a member of a team of economic advisors led by Prof. Anders Aslund and funded by George Soros that was working with the Ukrainian government. Michael was in charge of running the Kyiv office and following fiscal issues.

Michael recalls many memorable moments in Ukraine, including witnessing what 10,000% inflation in one year is like (a good bit of experience for someone who is tasked with managing, growing and safeguarding peoples’ life savings we think!). He also got to travel with the Ukrainian governmental delegation to the IMF/World Bank annual meetings in Madrid, Spain (1994) and Washington, DC (1995).

While in Ukraine, Michael married Svitlana Bohoslavetz and welcomed their first child Liza into the world.

Other memorable moments include the trans-Ukrainian Express from Kyiv to Simferopil, which Michael rates very highly (NOT!!! – he says – LOL we say), swimming in both the Chorne More (Black Sea) and Azivske More (Sea of Aziv) as well as in the Dnipro River, and translating for Prof. Jeffery Sachs during his first meeting with Viktor Yushchenko when Yushchenko was the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.

Now Michael is heading up the wealth management department at UCU. He enters that role at an exciting time when a great opportunity has opened up to steer the wealth management department into a new phase. You’ve already seen a bit of Michael’s knowledge in our regular Meest financial article series where Michael has written about gold and is preparing additional articles. You will also see and hear much more of him around town as he embarks on his mission to help people make sense of their financial options in an uncertain world.

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