Daryna Shevchenko

CEO The Kyiv Independent

Daryna Shevchenko is CEO of The Kyiv Independent and a partner at Jnomics media consultancy in Ukraine.

Daryna has over 12 years of experience as a media manager, journalist, editor, media trainer and media consultant with a focus on HR, fundraising, strategic and operational management. For six years Daryna worked as a news feed editor and journalist for Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper Kyiv Post. In 2013 she co-founded a media development NGO - Media Development Foundation (MDF) - and ran it for three years as an executive director. Within her MDF work she created Ukraine's biggest mentorship and exchange program, sending aspiring journalists for internships at newsrooms across the country. The program still works both nationally and internationally. She also worked as a head of the investigative journalism department at Ukraine's National TV channel ZIK and ran a nationwide project on investigative journalism development with the media NGO Regional Press Development Institute.

In 2018 Daryna joined Slidstvo.Info - one of the best investigative agencies in Ukraine - as an executive producer, working on production operations, fundraising and strategic development of the organization. In 2019 Daryna joined Jnomics media consultancy as a partner and worked with over a dozen media outlets in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia helping them build sustainable business models, adjust their operations and create relevant development strategies.

In late 2021 Daryna took on a CEO position at The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine's most influential English-language media outlet. The publication was founded by the Kyiv Post editorial staff fired from the paper for defending editorial independence and Jnomics media consultancy. Within 8 months of its existence The Kyiv Independent has raised nearly 3 million dollars in funding and became a go-to source for information on Ukraine as the war started.

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