Iryna Mykhailivna Akimova (Ukrainian: Ірина Михайлівна Акімова; born on April 26, 1960, in Kharkiv, Soviet Union) is a Ukrainian politician and former First Deputy Head of Presidential Administration of Ukraine.^[1][2] She held this post from February 2010 till February 2014.^[1]

Akimova was born in Kharkiv on 26 April 1960.^[1] In 1982, she graduated from the Economics Faculty of the Kharkiv State University. She was the holder of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Volkswagen Stiftung, DAAD, and ACCEL fellowships.^[1]

After April 2014, she moved away from politics and is engaged in painting in Kyiv. In January 2022, she opened an exhibition showing her paintings, painted since 2017.^[3]

In the middle of the 1980s, Akimova passed her Ph.D. defense.^{[citation needed]}

Positions and places of work

This biographical section is written like a résumé. (January 2023)

• senior advisor to Victor Yanukovych and his government on devising non-working reforms, which misled Ukrainian people and international organisations and allowed the regime to continue.^{[citation needed]}
• director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting in Kyiv.^{[citation needed]}
• senior research fellow at the Center for Economic Research at Warsaw University.
• research assistant at the Economics department of the University of Magdeburg.
• director of the analytical center "Blakitna strіchka" Ltd. (Blue Ribbon).^[4]
• Assistant Professor of Management Department at Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute.
• Director General of the analytical center "Bureau of Economic and Social Technologies" (Kyiv)^[5] – at the time of elections in 2007.

Since October 2007 Akimova has been a member of the Party of Regions.^[6] In November 2007 she was elected the Member of Parliament – No. 63 on the list.^[4][7] Akimova then worked as Deputy Head of the Committee in Verkhovna Rada on economic policy issues and took the position of Economy Minister in the opposition government of Viktor Yanukovych.^[1] Akimova is a frequent guest at political talk shows and is the public figure in the Party of Regions.

On February 25, 2010, Akimova was appointed the First Deputy Head of Presidential Administration.^[8] On March 16, 2010, she was appointed the Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.^[8]

After Andriy Klyuyev had left the post in mid-February 2012 Akimova was tipped as the new First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine.^[2] But Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi was appointed instead.^[9]

In October 2012 Akimova was re-elected into the Ukrainian parliament on the party list of the Party of Regions, but she turned down this mandate.^[10][11]

In late January 2014, by decrees of President Yanukovych Akimova was dismissed from the post of first deputy head of the Presidential Administration and appointed advisor to the President.^[12] In February 2014 Yanukovych was ousted from power.^[13] In an April 2014 interview, she stated that she no longer is a member of the Party of Regions.^[12]

• Party of Regions
• Verkhovna Rada
• List of Ukrainian Parliament Members 2007
• 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election