Olexandr Starodubtsev
Olexandr Starodubtsev is a Ukrainian reformer who is deeply involved in the creation of a new electronic public procurement system Prozorro, which is one of the most famous reforms in the country. Currently Starodubtsev is the Head of the Public Procurement Regulation Department in The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, and is an official policy maker in the spheres of public procurement and economic development in Ukraine.
The Prozorro system is famous for its different approaches to bottom-up reform based on the close collaboration between government, business and civil society. In 2016, the Prozorro system won several distinguished international awards, such as the Open Government Partnership Award, the Public Procurement Award, and was also recognized by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and Open Contracting Partnership. Moreover, Prozorro and its principles became an inspirational example for other Ukrainian reforms.
Starodubtsev was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1979. He graduated from Kharkiv National University in 2002. Previously he worked on the stock market where he made his career as a back-office specialist up to a managing partner of a Ukrainian branch of a multinational financial institution. He received an MBA degree from the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and became Alumnus of the Year in its first competition in 2015. He is married and has a son and a daughter.
Kenji E. Kushida is the Japan Program Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University (APARC), Project Leader of the Stanford Silicon Valley – New Japan Project (Stanford SV-NJ), research affiliate of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), and International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS). He holds a PhD in political science is from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.