I was born and raised in Ukraine, my two native tongues are Ukrainian and Russian.

I graduated from Kyiv National University in 1993 with the combined degree of Bachelor and Master of Art in Languages. My school is number one in Ukraine among language schools – at the time I was entering it, the competition was very strong: there were about 30 persons willing to take one seat in my school.

After the second year of the University, I had to serve my time in the military, where for two years I was translating from English to Russian.

After graduating, I immediately went on to work as an interpreter and translator, and my first big employer was Prisewaterhousecoopers with its accounting reform project in Ukraine. I was interpreting from English to Russian and Ukrainian at negotiations, public speeches and lectures. As far as the translating is concerned, I was the part of the team of translators, who translated International Accounting Standards from English to Ukrainian, and my name is actually on the book.

After my job at Pricewaterhousecoopers, I went on to apply my language skills in the advertising and marketing areas – I was a copywriter and account director for the advertising agency and after it – I was employed consecutively by two largest Ukrainian vodka companies as the head of their export marketing departments.

It were actually my language skills that made possible to my relocation to the United States – I was sent here from Ukraine to open the office of a Ukrainian vodka company and supervise their communications with the head office as well as their marketing and advertising here in the US.

Unfortunately, this company went bankrupt in the crises of 2008 and I left in the country without a job and I decided to return to my language skills and started a sightseeing company doing tours in Russian and doing translations and interpreting as a freelancer.