By Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor (Canada-Ukraine Affairs), Times Asian
Anna Dorosh is a Ukrainian public policy and strategic communications expert with experience in central government, European integration, and public-sector reform. She previously worked in the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and served as an assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Anna Dorosh about GOV4YOU, a national Ukrainian initiative designed to attract young professionals into public service. Dorosh explains declining youth participation, persistent vacancies, and the need for transparent career pathways, mentorship, training, community, and visible role models to strengthen state institutions and support European integration goals.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is GOV4YOU?
Anna Dorosh: GOV4YOU is a program of national scale in Ukraine that brings young talent into the public sector. Our tagline is simple: the state starts with you. The goal is to build the largest career-development ecosystem in Ukraine’s public sector and bring a new generation of leaders into civil service – not just to fill vacancies, but to change who sees government as a place worth building a career.
Jacobsen: What problems did you identify?
Dorosh: It started as something personal, before it became a set of numbers. When I stepped into a government role early in my career, my age became the story – the assumption was that someone that young, especially a young woman, couldn’t have earned a serious position on her own merit. It turned into weeks of public scrutiny that had nothing to do with my actual work. What stayed with me afterward wasn’t the noise itself, it was what it exposed: there’s no visible, credible path that shows people how someone genuinely earns their way into public service. When there’s no path on display, people reach for a conspiracy instead of a resume – and that’s exactly the vacuum I wanted to close once I decided to build something of my own.
Part of that story is personal, and I’ve decided to speak about it openly because staying silent only feeds the same conspiracy thinking. Some of the loudest claims were that my father had used his position to place me – the truth is the opposite. He left my mother while she was pregnant with me, and in twenty-five years I’ve shared a table with him exactly once, at my grandmother’s memorial, when I was twenty. Any support he’s ever provided is a matter of public record in my asset declarations, and there essentially isn’t any. Alongside that false claim, the backlash also included threats and comments that focused entirely on my age and looks rather than my work. I went back to my desk the next morning anyway – I don’t quit. But it proved the exact point I was already making: without a visible, credible path into public service, people fill the gap with suspicion instead of facts, and that vacuum is precisely what GOV4YOU exists to close.
The data backed up what I’d just lived through. The share of civil servants under 35 has been falling for six years straight – from 27% to 20% between 2020 and 2024, according to the National Agency for Civil Service. There are more than 31,150 unfilled civil-service positions right now, over 16% of all posts. And more than 16,000 specialists have left the civil service since the full-scale invasion began.
Underneath the story and the stats is the same problem: young people don’t see civil service as a modern, attractive career path, because there’s no clear entry point, no visible role models, and no single ecosystem connecting opportunities together. And this isn’t a side issue – a weak civil service is a direct risk to EU accession. The “Fundamentals” cluster, which covers public administration and rule of law, has to open before any other negotiating chapter can.
Jacobsen: Which ones does the GOV4YOU intend to solve?
Dorosh: GOV4YOU is built as five connected mechanisms rather than a single tool. GOV4YOU Capacity is a unified candidate database with individual vacancy matching, so people move through a system rather than personal connections. GOV4YOU Mentorship pairs people just starting out – or returning from abroad – with experienced mentors for career planning. We actually adapted this approach from the University of Oxford’s mentorship model – a system my co-founder Erik Kucherenko experienced firsthand during his MPA studies there. It’s built on a profound, personalized connection between a mentee and an established leader, rather than just a formal, superficial check-in. GOV4YOU Academy runs educational programming that prepares young people for civil service and improves training quality at partner universities. GOV4YOU Community connects young civil servants across institutions so they can trade experience instead of working in isolation. And GOV4YOU Stories tells the stories of people already shaping public policy, so the role models the sector is missing become visible.
I pitched this concept to Vlad Greziev at Lobby X, who connected me with Erik Kucherenko, and we combined our efforts to strengthen state institutions rather than competing. Put together, these components build one full path: inspiration, learning, mentorship, employment, and career growth.
Jacobsen: What motivated becoming involved in public service?
Dorosh: My grandmother, a chemist and my biggest supporter, instilled a deep thirst for knowledge in me, teaching me that knowledge is the one thing that stays with you forever. With my father absent from my life, she was also the steadiest presence I had growing up. Early on, I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian to help animals, and whenever I saw a critical situation, I immediately stepped in to help because I felt a strong responsibility for those who couldn’t protect themselves.
My interest in public service and European integration goes back to my lyceum, where law and European studies were part of the curriculum from the 8th grade. A teacher who noticed my knack for public speaking pushed me toward political science over journalism, and that’s where my passion first took root.
This interest turned professional after I attended a summer school in Poznan focusing on communications and countering manipulation, which led to an internship at the Chernivtsi City Council. When I shared my ambitions to work in international relations, I was directed to cross-border cooperation, dealing with complex Interreg RO-UA grant programs. International relations stopped being an abstract idea and became something concrete: grants, infrastructure, regional development, and cooperation with other countries. I worked for six months unpaid just to gain this experience.
Later, I invested my last 2,000 UAH to travel to Lviv for the “Youth Connect for Ukraine” offline training by the British Council in Ukraine (in partnership with MoloDvizhCenter and the TVORY network). Although travel and accommodation were not covered by the program, I knew investing in my skills was essential. This initiative led to me creating and managing “Big To Be” – a community project for youth activation that reached nearly 60,000 beneficiaries, featured UK Ambassador Martin Harris as a key speaker, and was recognized among the top projects globally by the British Council.
From there, I kept pulling the same thread. When I moved to Kyiv, I passed a selection process to join the newly formed EU Law Department at the Ministry of Justice, where I helped coordinate the National Program for Adapting Ukrainian Legislation to EU Law. My career then expanded to communications at the Cabinet of Ministers, and later, serving as Assistant to the Minister of Health (patronage service).
During my time at the Ministry of Justice, I saw brilliant, driven young people acting as the engine for European integration. The problem wasn’t a total absence of young talent; the problem was that there was no transparent, systemic entry point or formalized mentorship for youth who wanted to get in. I wanted to fix that vacuum so other young professionals wouldn’t have to face baseless skepticism.
Jacobsen: What did the work in government teach you?
Dorosh: It taught me that government work is essentially high-level project management and strategic coordination. Working across local governance, the EU Law Department at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, and strategic communications at the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine showed me that state institutions rely on managers who can structure complex workflows, align parallel processes, and translate high-level policy goals into concrete outcomes.
Through these roles, I developed my core strength as an excellent project manager and strategist, learning three essential principles:
- Strategic Project Management: Public service demands high-level organizational discipline – managing complex inter-agency processes, tracking analytical deliverables, anticipating risks, and coordinating cross-institutional teams to meet strict deadlines.
- Resilience & Accountability: Navigating high-stakes environments built my emotional fortitude. I learned to take complete responsibility for complex tasks, stand firm under pressure, and maintain hyper-accountability – I expect clear, proactive communication and cannot stand irresponsibility or missed deadlines.
- Empowering Talent: Facing public pressure showed me that institutional capacity isn’t just about bureaucracy; it’s about people. Supporting young, capable professionals and creating a collaborative environment is what actually drives systemic reform – an insight that directly shaped the foundation of GOV4YOU.
Jacobsen: Do Ukrainians hesitate to consider careers in government?
Dorosh: Yes, and the trend is measurable, not anecdotal. The share of civil servants under 35 has dropped for six consecutive years, and vacancy rates are high even before you account for the more than 16,000 specialists who left the civil service since the full-scale invasion began. It’s not that young Ukrainians lack interest in public service – it’s that the sector has no clear entry point, no visible role models, and no ecosystem connecting the pieces. That’s the specific gap GOV4YOU is designed to close.
Jacobsen: How does GOV4YOU differ from traditional government recruitment?
Dorosh: Classic vacancy platforms stop at the job posting. GOV4YOU doesn’t – it builds the full path: inspiration, learning, mentorship, employment, and career growth after someone is already inside the system. A listing can get someone through the door once; a mentor, a community, and a visible growth path are what keep them there.
Jacobsen: Who are the primary targeted audiences of GOV4YOU?
Dorosh: Our primary audience is 3rd-to-6th-year students, master’s students, PhD candidates, and young professionals aged 20 to 44. Our secondary audience is private-sector specialists considering a move into public service, Ukrainians returning from abroad, veterans, and civil-society representatives.
Jacobsen: What skills do young professionals need now?
Dorosh: Beyond functional skills, young professionals need strong project-management discipline, because public-sector work heavily relies on coordinating people and deadlines rather than executing single technical tasks. They also need to be resilient, unafraid to be visible, and ready to stand up for themselves against ageism or bias. Finally, fluency in what EU accession requires from the Ukrainian administration is critical – a foundation I was lucky to start building back in high school at the Chernivtsi Lyceum.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Anna.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Canadian journalist and publisher who serves as Times Asian’s Editor for Canada and Ukraine Affairs and writes on international affairs.
