Young leaders section

Since 2008, Yalta European Strategy (YES), in cooperation with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, has provided Ukrainian young leaders with access to its Annual Meeting. Each year, YES selects 100 Ukrainian students and young professionals to participate in the Young Leaders Section.

The Young Leaders Section is a discussion platform for young people to share ideas, learn from international and local professionals’ experience and develop practical solutions to meet modern challenges. The core criteria to select the young leaders are civic engagement, leadership potential and motivation to improve the country. Over four hundred of the best Ukrainian students and young leaders have participated in the Young Leaders Section since its launch.

The young generation of Ukrainians as those who will transform the country has been at the core of Victor Pinchuk Foundation's work since its inception in 2006. By creating a Young Leaders Section at YES, the foundation provides this generation of change-makers with the opportunity to learn from world leaders in politics, business and the non-profit sector.

Past speakers to young leaders at YES have included prominent Ukrainian and international

politicians, opinion-makers and civil society leaders, such as Tony Blair, Richard Branson, Valdis Dombrovskis, Robert Gates, Elton John, Vitaliy Klitschko, Bernard-Henry Lévy, David

Petraeus, Petro Poroshenko, Karl Rove, Kevin Spacey, Tacan Ildem, Muhammad Yunus, Fareed Zakaria and others.