Founder of UA2USA and former Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture
Oleksandr Romanishyn is an economist and economic development strategist working at the intersection of business, technology, public policy, and civil society. He is a board member and the think tank lead at ISE Group, an officially listed service provider of the European Innovation Council.
As the principal investigator of UA2USA, he led the first systematic measurement of the Ukrainian – American business community, identifying 2,270 verified firms across all 50 U.S. states within a broader network of approximately 45,000 Ukrainian – American enterprises. His work reframes Ukraine’s reconstruction as a long-term economic partnership, connecting diaspora business capacities, European innovation pipelines, and U.S. market-entry infrastructure.
Prior to this work, Oleksandr served as deputy minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine, overseeing five departments responsible for export promotion, trade defense, sanctions policy, and intellectual property policy. Before entering the government, he spent more than a decade in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance, including at Ernst & Young (EY), where he founded the first Big Four-anchored startup accelerator in Ukraine.
He is also a contributor to scholarly publications and policy papers on economic resilience, democratic security, energy transition, transatlantic policy, and foreign information manipulation and interference.
