The independent members of the Supervisory Board of JSB Ukrgasbank shared their experience on how the improvement of the activities of the Board of Directors affects the interest of investors at the III International Corporate Directors Forum.

“In 2015, we made a conscious decision that we need to introduce modern civilized principles of corporate governance not only for improving the performance of the Bank but also for attracting debt capital, investors and partners among international organizations,” Teimour Bagirov said. — Without any commands and orders from the side of the regulator or the shareholder, we by ourselves began to undertake reforms in the formation of committees. At present, we have 6 committees.”

Since 2016, the Bank has been consulting with representatives of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which have reviewed the Bank’s corporate governance improvement measures and provided their recommendations.

“These recommendations were fulfilled and, to date, the Supervisory Board works efficiently: in several years the Bank has gone a long way from number 17 to the market number 4, from losses of UAH 3.4 billion to UAH 600 million profit, ” Mr Bagirov said.

“The most important thing to do with Bord is to create an atmosphere of trust,” Yuriy Blaschuk added. “If an investor knows that the company has corporate governance and it works, there is a system of independent directors, there is a system of different views, then he trusts such a company and more likely to invest in it.”

Olena Voloshyna, Head of IFC’s Operations in Ukraine, noted the importance of mutual trust within the Board.

“An effective Board without trust is impossible,” she emphasized. “Now the Supervisory Board of UKRGAZBANK is a good example of “diversity” – it has a variety of gender, age, expertise, the old members stayed and the new ones came. And if the Board can build itself as an institution in which respect will be given to different expertise, different views, and there will be mutual trust, then such a Board will be very effective“.