Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has officially become the record holder among government officials for the number of advisors. As it turned out, he works with 37 advisors at once - five of whom receive salaries from the state budget, and the rest are freelance consultants.
This was reported by State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance Dmytro Samonenko in response to a request from Glavkom.
Five of Marchenko's full-time advisers – Ivan Bohdan, Roman Horbunenko, Iryna Zhigulina, Dmytro Kovalenko and Oleg Pavlovsky – are officially employed by the ministry. Their official salary in 2025 is 17,800 hryvnias, however, as the Ministry of Finance admits, numerous allowances are added to this amount: for years of service, work intensity, and performance of particularly important work. Bonuses are also provided. However, the department decided not to disclose specific figures.
Another 32 advisors work with the minister on a voluntary basis. Among them are international experts and former government officials:
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Tanaka Masaru, an expert at the Bank of Japan who previously worked in financial institutions in Japan, the UAE, and Myanmar;
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Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, now co-founder of Boris Nemtsov's "For Freedom" foundation;
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Artem Shevalov, Member of the Board of Directors of the EBRD and Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Privatbank.
The team also includes many former Ukrainian top officials:
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Inna Draganchuk, former Deputy Minister for Reintegration of the TOT;
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Vitaliy Lisovenko, former Deputy Minister of Finance and Debt Commissioner;
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Yehor Stadny, former Deputy Minister of Education, currently First Vice-Rector of the Kyiv School of Economics;
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Vasyl Shkurakov, former First Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Deputy Minister of Finance.
Among the freelance advisors is political strategist Borys Tizenhausen, who was an advisor to the Administration of President Petro Poroshenko from 2014 to 2019. In the same years, Serhiy Marchenko worked in the same structure as deputy head of the Administration. The Administration was then headed by Ihor Rainin.
Thus, the Finance Minister's team is not just technical assistants, but an influential circle of former high-ranking officials, international analysts, and political advisors.
