Business and technologyאיגור קולומויסקי

Ihor Kolomoyskyi

Ihor Kolomoyskyi is a Ukrainian-born Israeli businessman who co-founded PrivatBank and served as governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast from 2014 to 2015.

born 1963Co-founding PrivatBankGovernor of Dnipropetrovsk OblastOwning the 1+1 Media GroupFunding the Menorah Center

Born: 13 February 1963, Dnipro
Occupation: businessperson, banker, politician, entrepreneur
Party: UKROP
Education: National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine
Wars: War in Donbas, Russo-Ukrainian war
Founded: PrivatBank (1992), Menorah center (2012)

Ihor Kolomoyskyi was born in 1963 in Dnipro

Kolomoyskyi was born in 1963 into a Jewish family in Dnipropetrovsk, in Soviet Ukraine. Both of his parents were engineers. He studied engineering at the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute from 1980 and graduated in 1985.

He began trading in the late Soviet years with partners including Gennadiy Bogolyubov. In 1992 the Privat Group founded PrivatBank, and he chaired the group's board from 1997. He later controlled oil, metal, airline and media companies, including the 1+1 Media Group.

In 2014 he was appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and funded volunteer battalions fighting Russian-backed forces. He was dismissed in 2015. In 2016 the state nationalized PrivatBank, and in 2019 his television channel supported the campaign of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

He was indicted in the United States in 2020 on bank fraud charges. In 2022 he reportedly lost his Ukrainian citizenship. In 2023 he was arrested in Ukraine on suspicion of fraud and money laundering and held in pre-trial detention.

He has been active in Ukraine's Jewish community. He was elected president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine in 2008 and helped fund the Menorah Center in Dnipro in 2012.