Volodymyr Sheiko

Volodymyr Sheiko was born in Kyiv in 1985. In 2007, he graduated cum laude from the Institute of International Relations of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University as an expert in international political studies and English to Ukrainian translator.

In 2006-2018, Volodymyr worked at the Ukrainian office of the British council as an art program director, communication manager, art program manager of the region of Southeast Europe and Central Asia. He organized many cultural projects and events such as exhibitions, art residencies, cinema festivals, professional trainings, concerts, literary programs, and theater performances in 15 countries of Europe.

In 2017, he co-founded the independent theater space Stage 6 at the National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Center. In 2018, he was a producer of the theater play Bad Roads based on the eponymous play by Natallia Vorozhbyt. Volodymyr is the Ukrainian translator of Duncan McMillan’s play Lungs, set by the Theater on Pechersk and Sumy Mykhailo Shchepkin Theater.

In 2018, Volodymyr won the open competition and was appointed to the position of Director General of the Ukrainian Institute, a newly formed state institution in charge of Ukrainian cultural diplomacy. He is a co-author of the five-year strategy of the institution, developed in close cooperation with representatives of the cultural sphere. Under Volodymyr’s direction, the Ukrainian Institute organized over 400 events, projects, and information campaigns in more than 20 countries. Among these initiatives there were the Bilateral Year of Culture Austria-Ukraine (2019), UK/Ukraine Season of Culture (2022-23), EuroFestival (cultural program of Eurovision 2023), and a range of projects about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the Ukrainian Institute opened its first foreign offices in Germany and France.

Volodymyr got a professional diploma in marketing in 2009 and a diploma of digital marketing from the Charter Institute of Marketing in 2014. Finished his studies of contemporary British and Irish literature at the SUISS Summer School in 2011. Graduated from the USC Center of Public Diplomacy (2019) and the School of Strategic Architecture of the Kyiv Mohyla Business School (2020). In 2023, he got an MBA from the Kyiv Mohyla Business School.

Volodymyr is a co-author and lecturer of the course "The Basic of Cultural Diplomacy" at the Ukrainian Catholic University since 2021. He regularly gives lectures on cultural and public diplomacy, cultural policies, and international communications (particularly at the Georgetown University, Oxford University Diplomatic Studies Programme, Goldsmiths University of London, University of San Diego, Cambridge University, College of Europe in Natolin etc.).

He is the author of many essays, interviews, and articles about culture, cultural diplomacy, cultural policies, and the experience of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in Ukrainian and foreign media, magazines, and anthologies. Volodymyr also co-initiated the international campaign to suspend the cultural cooperation with Russia after February 24, 2022.

He entered the ranking of 100 Ukrainian leaders according to the Ukrayinska Pravda (2023), People of the NV "for opening Ukrainian culture to the world" (2022), and 100 most influential Ukrainians according to the Focus magazine (2019).