Peter Vanhecke, Chairman of the Management Board
Peter Vanhecke is an experienced business manager with extensive knowledge of equity capital markets and M&A transactions, including in the energy sector . He was appointed to run Ukrnafta in February 2011.
Trained as a lawyer, Vanhecke began his career at the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie before becoming a strategic consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Transitioning into investment banking, he subsequently held positions in the M&A departments of Lazard in Paris and Wasserstein Perella in London. He later joined Dresdner Kleinwort, working in their London, Frankfurt and Moscow offices. Vanhecke joined Renaissance Capital’s Moscow headquarters in 2006. In 2008, he became CEO of Renaissance Capital in Ukraine and in the wider Central and Eastern European region. In his time in investment banking, Vanhecke participated in M&A and capital market transactions covering a wide variety of regions and sectors.
He holds a law degree from Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, a master’s in law from Northwestern University in Illinois, and an MBA from Columbia University in New York.
Michael Bakunenko, Director of Corporate Development & Strategy
Drawing on his extensive background as an investment banker and in-depth knowledge of the Ukrainian corporate sector, Michael Bakunenko came to Ukrnafta in April 2011. He has substantial experience on advising emerging market companies on strategic and development issues.
He began his career as an analyst at FICC group at Goldman Sachs in New York, where for four years he specialized in plain and credit derivative swaps. At Global Trust Ventures, he later participated in portfolio analysis, investment and execution in the automotive, technology, gaming and real estate sectors. From 2007 to 2011, Bakunenko served as Vice President, Investment Banking and Finance at Renaissance Capital in Kiev and Moscow. During his time at Renaissance, he established the firm’s representative office in Belarus, functioned as head of marketing and origination in Ukraine and Belarus, and participated extensively in Ukrainian, Russian and cross-border M&A and capital market transactions, including IPOs, SPOs and private placements.
Bakunenko has a bachelor’s in business and finance from Lehigh University (USA) and a master’s in international finance and business from Columbia University in New York. He was born in Odessa, Ukraine.
Artem Scherban, Finance Director
Artem Scherban was named Finance Director in June 2011. In this role he coordinates the Finance Department and is developing a corporate relations function.
Scherban, a native of Donetsk, Ukraine, brings with him a strong background in financial management in the oil and gas industry. From 1999 to 2006 he was CEO of Gefest, major chain of filling stations in Eastern Ukraine.
In 2006 he entered politics and was elected as a Member of Parliament. He was first elected in May 2006 and won reelection in November of the following year. Scherban served as Acting Chairman of the Subcommittee on Planning and Development of the Committee on Construction, Urban Development and Housing.
Scherban is a graduate in Business Administration of the Donetsk State Academy of Management. He also holds a a degree from the Institute for Postgraduate Education at the National Technical University of Oil and Gas and a masters degree from the Donetsk State University of Economy and Trade in Accounting and Audit.
Alan Sutton, Director of Economy and Planning
Alan Sutton is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) and experienced financial director bringing more than 20 years of varied experience in Central and Eastern Europe to Ukrnafta. He joined the Company in 2011 from Cadogan Petroleum plc, where he served as interim CFO for nearly two years and oversaw the financial aspects of the restructuring and turn-around of that company. Cadogan Petroleum is an upstream oil and gas company with assets in the Poltava, Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk oblasts, and is fully listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Sutton trained at Price Waterhouse in Leeds. He worked in Hungary for nine years in various management positions, including three years as Senior Manager / Director of auditing at Deloitte & Touche, where he was in charge of the audits of some of Hungary’s major state companies, including three IPOs of MOL, the Hungarian national oil and gas company. He also spent three years as Chief Accountant of Cereol Hungary, where he implemented the financial side of that company’s turn-around following privatization.
From 1998 to 2004, Sutton was country CFO for Cereol Ukraine (later Bunge Ukraine) and Financial Director of the Dnepropetrovsk Oil Extraction Plant, manufacturers of the Oleina brand of sunflower oil. He continued with Bunge until 2007 working on a number of special projects in Russia, before taking up the assignment at Cadogan Petroleum.
Sutton is a graduate of Cambridge University (UK) and speaks Russian, Hungarian, Spanish and French.
Vladimir Pustovarov, Executive Director
Vladimir Pustovarov has been a senior executive at Ukrnafta since 2003. He joined as a Deputy Chairman of the Management Board with responsibility for finance and was named Finance Director in 2009. Today his role is as Executive Director.
Pustovarov started his career as an accountant in Ukraine’s mining industry. From 1996-1998 he worked at Privatbank in various roles and then served as Deputy CEO of Belarus Exchange Bank from 1998-2000. He then was CFO of Balcem, the construction materials firm now part of Eurocement, for three years.
Pustovarov holds a degree in Accounting from the Kharkov Institute of Railway Engineers.
Natalia Dolina, Chief Accountant
Natalia Dolina joined Ukrnafta in 2003 and since that time has played a key role in the accounting, reporting and monitoring of economic and financial operations.
Dolina previously worked as Chief Accountant at Nadvirnyansk Refinery, where she was responsible for all accounting and taxation issues of the refinery. She introduced an automatic data processing system while at the refinery.
Dolina graduated from Lviv State University with the degree of engineer-economist. In 1994 she studied at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in New York.