Olena Boytsun

Olena Boytsun leads investment activities in Central and Eastern Europe for Luminate, a global philanthropic investment organization that is part of the Omidyar Group, established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. Luminate is set up to empower people and help improve lives by building stronger societies.

Olena brings over 17 years of investment and management experience to her role, having worked and studied in Europe, Asia and the US. Olena is a member of the Steering Committee for Civitates fund, a philanthropic initiative for Solidarity and Democracy in Europe, is a member of the Supervising Board of the Aspen Institute Kyiv and serves as a jury member at the start-up Seedstars competitions for CEE countries. Olena leads Diversity of Capital and Impact Investing club with the aim to transform the financial funding system in the CEE region toward more flexible and effective capital. In 2021 Olena founded the communication group Tech&Society that unites diverse group of experts for researching questions of the impact of technology on the society.

Olena holds the title of Women International Master in chess and has founded “Chess for Children”, a non-profit in Ukraine that helps children to uncover their potential through the game of chess. For many years Olena was also involved in chess management processes, including representing Ukraine at congresses of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and serving at FIDE Development and Events Commissions.

Olena graduated summa cum laude with a Master in International Economics from Dnipropetrovsk National University in Ukraine. She was a Chevening Scholar at Oxford University and a recipient of ERP DAAD scholarship for economics at Passau University in Germany.