Iryna Kovalenko

Chief of Staff — Founders & Private Principals

Bringing order to chaos.

For over a decade, the operational right hand to founders, CEOs and private principals — running complex, cross-border work across the UAE, Europe and the wider MENA region.

Kyiv/ Geneva/ Luxembourg/ Dubai/ Abu Dhabi
Iryna Kovalenko portrait
Iryna Kovalenko speaking at a networking event in Dubai
Iryna Kovalenko

The brief

I am the person an executive hands a problem to and stops thinking about — the operating backbone that lets the people at the top move faster.

I work in English, French and Ukrainian, between corporate and single-family-office worlds. The work is rarely visible, and that is the point: governance that holds, decisions that move, partners who feel looked after, and a principal who never has to wonder whether something was handled.

Bringing order to chaos is a vocation, not a profession.

The Mandate

What I own, end to end

01

Operating rhythm & decision support

The cadence, the room and the call that has to be made today — so leadership runs faster on a structure that holds.

02

Cross-functional teams, many jurisdictions

People and workstreams aligned across countries, time zones and legal systems, from entry level to Ph.D. analysts.

03

Stakeholders & partnerships at C-level

The single trusted point between principal, C-suite, portfolio founders and external partners.

04

Project & event delivery

Planning through execution — owned end to end, with the office represented well at every touchpoint.

05

The documentation & reporting backbone

Process, records and governance built so accountability and follow-through survive contact with reality.

06

Discretion, as a default

Private capital, private principals, private decisions — the work that should never need to be talked about.

Selected Results

Built, banked & delivered

A

Governance & decisions

  • Built the meeting-governance backbone for 30+ executive sessions — decisions and action items structured so accountability held across the team.
  • Primary liaison between principal, C-level, portfolio founders and external partners, orchestrating the meetings and decisions that moved a VC fund forward.
B

Cross-border operations & banking

  • Stood up the operational setup of Swiss banking relationships (UBS, HSBC), navigating cross-border compliance and KYC.
  • Led a full redesign of the documentation workflow with a Swiss public-service office, streamlining processing and compliance.
  • Ran complex projects for a HNWI — high-end construction and the licensing behind builds in Courchevel 1850 and Geneva.
C

Events & representation

  • Owned high-profile corporate events across Dubai and Abu Dhabi end to end — representing the office to VIP guests and institutional partners.
  • Single point of contact for conferences with foreign stakeholders throughout Europe.
D

Multilingual communication

  • Managed inbound foreign delegations end to end, with live EN / FR / UA interpretation in high-level meetings at home and abroad.
  • Produced PR content in three languages and executed the social strategy that grew engagement, tuned to each cultural context.

Turning Points

Where the scope changed

2014Kyiv · Geneva

The apprenticeship in precision

Kernel — Executive Assistant & Project Coordinator

Trusted with complex projects for a HNWI and the first cross-border builds — Courchevel and Geneva, permits and all. Where the standard for “done” got set.

2017Kyiv

Where operations met diplomacy

NPC Ukrenergo — International Project Coordinator

Onto the national stage: foreign delegations, live trilingual interpretation, and PR at the level of a state energy operator.

2018Kyiv · Geneva · Luxembourg

From running tasks to running the room

Single-Family Office & Investment Fund — Senior Executive Assistant

Led a cross-functional team across three countries, redesigned the Swiss documentation workflow, and built the banking and compliance backbone the fund relied on.

2021Dubai · Abu Dhabi

The operational right hand, in full

Family Office — Chief of Staff

The complete mandate: the principal’s right hand, governance for a VC fund, and high-profile events across the Emirates — for four and a half years.

A note to self

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

Not from any fear of missing out — something quieter than that. Life is multilayered, multifaceted. Isn’t that the whole assignment: to taste its different facets while we’re still here? We stay human through all of it — soul, emotion, fear and excitement alike. So I’d put the old line my own way:

Stay hungry. Stay reckless.

Education

Master’s, International Law

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv · 2015–2018

Master’s, English & French Language & Literature

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv · 2008–2014

Languages

EnglishFrenchUkrainian

Built for

Family officesFounder-led venturesCross-border opsPrivate capital

Let’s talk

Over coffee, ideally.

Iryna Kovalenko · Dubai, UAE Operations / Governance / Discretion