Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He served as minister of defense of Ukraine from 2019 to 2020 and now serves as co-founder and chairman of the security think tank Centre for Defence Strategies, which focuses on security studies, policy research, and advocacy in Ukraine.

Prior to his appointment as minister of defense, Zagorodnyuk served as head of the Ministry of Defense’s Reforms Project Office from 2015 to 2018. During this time, he was a key player and major architect of military reform in Ukraine. In July 2019, prior to serving as minister, Zagorodnyuk was appointed advisor to the president of Ukraine for defense matters, as well as a member of the supervisory council of Ukraine’s Ukroboronprom defense company.

Zagorodnyuk has over 20 years of experience in the field of heavy industry and industrial engineering. From 2005 to 2019 he served as founder and chairman of the board for Discovery Drilling Equipment.

Zagorodnyuk holds degrees from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in law and a post-graduate diploma with distinction in the specialty of financial strategy from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.