Serhiy Tihipko

Serhiy Leonidovych Tihipko (Сергій Леонідович Тiгiпко; born 13 February 1960) is a Ukrainian politician and finance specialist who was Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Tihipko was born on 13 February 1960 in the village of Drăgănești, Sîngerei, in the Lazovskiy district of the Moldavian SSR in a Ukrainian family who moved there from Podolia in 1902.

His father fought in World War II where he was badly wounded, and died when Tihipko was 10.

His mother was a village nurse.

He has two brothers: one six years older, and one two years younger.

Tihipko grew up in suburb of Chișinau and moved to Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR, after finishing school when he was 17.

Tihipko was educated at the local school in Lazovskiy district, and then went to university in Dnipropetrovsk, where he graduated in engineering-metallurgy from the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute in 1982.

He served in the Soviet Army in a tank regiment from 1982–1984.

Tihipko was first head of a department, and then deputy director for teaching and educational work at the Dnipropetrovsk Mechanical-Metallurgical Technical Secondary School from 1984–1986.

At the same time he developed a strong career in Komsomol, the youth arm of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

This enabled him to become First Secretary of Dnipropetrovsk Komsomol regional organization from 1986–1989; there were nearly half a million members of Komsomol in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and Tihipko became its first popularly elected First Secretary in 1989.

From 1989–1991, Tihipko was the First Secretary of Dnipropetrovsk regional committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League.

"After the break up of the Soviet Union and the results of the political power struggles that followed he decided to put his political interests aside and start a business career as a manager in a private bank. This was an undeveloped industry in the early stages of the former Soviet Union and it turned out to be a shrewd move."

He "made swift progress and from 1991–1992 he was appointed Deputy Chairman of a small commercial bank called Dnipro Bank. From there he became Chairman of the Board of the commercial bank Privatbank until 1997, helping in taking the small regional bank to become one of the biggest private banks in Eastern Europe."

In 1994 he became a non-staff consultant on monetary policy to the President Leonid Kuchma.

He was also an advisor to Kuchma in the lead up to the introduction of the national currency, the Hryvnia in 1996.

Realising that there was a conflict of interest between his political role and his shareholding in Privat Bank, he divested himself of the shares

Tihipko served as the minister of economics (1997–1999).

Tihipko was Minister of Economics in 2000 and subsequently served as Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine from 2002 to 2004.

In June 2000 Tihipko left the Yushchenko Government to take part in a parliamentary by-election on 25 June and eventually won a seat at the majoritarian constituency #36 in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

In November 2000 became member and leader of Labour Ukraine.

At the 2002 parliamentary elections, with the Labour Ukraine being part of the For United Ukraine alliance, he was again elected into parliament.

Tihipko was Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine in the years 2002–2004.

Tihipko chaired the election campaign in 2004 for presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

Analysts have claimed Kuchma should have given his support to Tihipko during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections instead of supporting Viktor Yanukovych, however Yanukovych had more popular support.

After the election Tihipko temporarily left Ukrainian politics, resigning as Labour Ukraine leader on 23 April 2005, to build up a bank which he sold to Swedbank group for nearly $1 billion.

Tihipko was an ally of former President Leonid Kuchma.

He had an income of about $2.5 million in 2008 and told Kyiv Post he had spent roughly the same amount on his presidential campaign till December 2009.

“I will spend as much as I need.

This is my own money.” Tihipko claims he has spent 90 million hryvnia (about $11 million ) on his election campaign.

Tihipko was defeated in the first round of the presidential election, receiving 13.05% of the vote; two candidates (Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych) received more votes.

Korrespondent estimated his fortune at $369 million in 2009.

Tihipko was elected leader of the party Strong Ukraine in November 2009.

He ran unsuccessfully for President of Ukraine in the 2010 presidential election and participated in the 2014 presidential election, in which he placed fifth with 5.23 percent of the vote.

Tihipko is also former Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy.

In January 2010, Tihipko declared "his team" will participate in the 2014 Kyiv local election.

Tihipko was a candidate for President of Ukraine in the 2010 presidential election.

Of the 18 presidential candidates, Tihipko has declared the biggest income to the Ukrainian election Committee.

On 22 January 2010 Tihipko warned outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko could introduce a state of emergency during the transfer of power after the presidential election 2010.

Tihipko did not endorse a candidate for the run-off of the election.