Sasha Borovik

Alexander "Sasha" Borovik () is an American (New York State) and European lawyer. From 2015 thru 2016, he was in Ukraine as a technocrat invited to the country after the revolution 2014 as the First Deputy Minister of Economy. He also served as a deputy governor and an adviser to the governor of Odessa Oblast, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Personal life.
Born in Lviv on 7 April 1968, Borovik initially studied at Lviv University's Faculty of Foreign Languages. In spring 1990 he moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia. After studying at Prague University, he went on to graduate from Harvard Law School.
Borovik is a German citizen. He was granted Ukrainian citizenship in early March 2015 by president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. He was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship on 4 May 2017 in an allegedly politically-motivated decision of president Poroshenko, of whom Borovik grew very critical.
Career.
In 1993, Borovik joined Squire, a law firm working with the Czech government and the EC on preparations for the enlargement of the European Union. He also worked for Cooley in Palo Alto. In 2003, together with NYU Professor of neuro-science Andre Fenton, he co-founded Biosignal. He later worked as the head lawyer for Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector in Seattle. In March 2014, he moved to London and became Akamai Technologies' EMEA general counsel. Borovik is a co-founder of BioSignal, a New York-based brain-science company; and ZAKA, Africa-based digital ID startup.
Following the Euromaidan revolution 2014 in Ukraine, Borovik was invited to work as the First Deputy Minister of Economy, but following the conflict with the prime minister Yatsenyuk, whom Borovik accused of lack of strategy, corruption and mismanagement of western funds, Borovik left the central government. In June 2015, the governor of Odessa Oblast, Mikheil Saakashvili, appointed him his deputy. In Odessa, Borovik challenged mafia's strong grip on economic and political powers. He also presented the Odessa Reform Package, a libertarian formula designed to release Ukrainian business from red tape. After not receiving support from the central government, Borovik resigned from the post of Odessa Regional Administration deputy head on 4 May 2016.
In the October 2015 Odessa mayoral election Borovik was the Saakashvili's Team candidate for the mayor of Odessa. Incumbent mayor, with alleged ties to international mafia, Gennadiy Trukhanov defeated him with 52.9% against 25.7% in the first round of the mayoral election that Saakashvili's Team considered rigged. According to Saakashvili's Team the elections revealed President Poroshenko's silent support of the mafia in Odessa. Throughout his time in Ukraine, Borovik held himself as a pro-western technocrat critical of the previous and current Ukrainian establishment and mafia.