He is the founder of EastOne Group and Interpipe, as well as the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Yalta European Strategy, PinchukArtCentre, and other philanthropic initiatives.
Today, he uses platforms and projects he built over decades to support his country’s defence of life and freedom against Russian aggression.
Mr. Pinchuk graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute and became a research engineer in pipe production. He earned a PhD in industrial engineering from the same institution. In 1990, he founded Interpipe on the basis of his patented innovations in pipe design, engineering, and production, which were successfully adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the former USSR.
In 2007, an investment advisory group, EastOne, was formed to support new investments and the existing asset portfolio. In 2012, Interpipe completed the construction of the first steel plant in Ukraine in forty-five years. The state-of-the-art steel mill has a minimal carbon footprint and is the only manufacturer of green steel in Ukraine. The facility includes large-scale installations by world-renowned artist Olafur Eliasson.
Having been active in philanthropy for years, in 2006, Mr Pinchuk consolidated his activities in the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, the largest private Ukrainian philanthropic foundation, aimed at transforming Ukraine and fostering its European and international integration through education, health care, access to contemporary art, and platforms and conferences in Ukraine and abroad.
In 2004, he created the Yalta European Strategy, an independent international organisation that promotes Ukraine’s European and global integration. PinchukArtCentre, the most dynamic contemporary art centre in the region, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, and the Ukraine History Global Initiative are also among the projects he founded.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Victor and Olena Pinchuk have supported Ukrainians suffering from war and the country’s defenders through multiple large-scale programs, including the Ukraine Relief Fund for humanitarian support, created together with Western business leaders, and RECOVERY, a nationwide network of rehabilitation centres for soldiers.
Victor Pinchuk serves on the international advisory board of the Atlantic Council and the Global Board of Advisers of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a signatory of the Giving Pledge.
Mr. Pinchuk was on the 2010 Time 100 – The World’s Most Influential People list. He was honoured, along with Olena Pinchuk, by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was on the ARTnews 200 Top Collectors and the ArtReview Power 100 lists and was presented with the Trebbia European Award for support of the arts and culture (2011). He is an Honorary Citizen of Kyiv (2009). In 2013, Victor Pinchuk received the insignia of Knight in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
On February 19, 2013, Mr Pinchuk committed to give half or more of his fortune during his lifetime and beyond to philanthropic causes, joining the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic initiative founded in 2010 by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
In 2014, he was presented with the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Award for his work in fostering Ukrainian-Jewish relations and advancing his homeland’s European aspirations. On July 13, 2015, in Florence, Italy, he received the Palazzo Strozzi Renaissance Man of the Year Award. In 2023, Victor Pinchuk received, on behalf of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights.
