Luc Chénier

CEO, Kyiv Post

The CEO who relaunched Ukraine’s oldest English-language newspaper less than three months before the full-scale invasion, and grew it through the war.

Luc Chénier is the CEO of the Kyiv Post, the English-language news outlet that has covered Ukraine since 1995. He took charge in November 2021, had the newsroom back online within a month, and by late February 2022 was running a media business in a capital under missile attack. His keynote, The War Time CEO, turns that experience into a clear message for business leaders: black swans will come, and the companies that prepare for them can do more than survive.

Signature keynote: The War Time CEO

War, a pandemic, a cyberattack, a market collapse: sooner or later every company meets the event it did not plan for. In The War Time CEO, Luc tells how the Kyiv Post kept publishing from the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion and then grew, turning a local newspaper into “Ukraine’s Global Voice” with an audience that is 97% outside the country.

The talk is about business, not the battlefield. The war sets the stakes; the subject is preparation, decision-making and growth under pressure. Luc also brings in findings from a roundtable of Ukrainian CEOs who grew their own companies after the invasion, which shows that his story is not an isolated case.

The core message: don’t fear the crisis, prepare for it.

What audiences take away

• Why black swans (war, pandemics, cyberattacks, sudden market shocks) belong on the leadership agenda, not only in a risk register
• How a company keeps operating when its home city is under attack
• How a crisis can open new markets: the decisions, from dropping the paywall to going after international readers, that turned a war-time newsroom into a global media brand
• What Ukrainian CEOs who grew during the war did differently

The talk works as a conference keynote or an after-dinner corporate keynote. It can be tailored to the client’s industry and to how much of the war context the audience needs.

Key achievements

• CEO of the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s oldest English-language news outlet (founded 1995): 2016–2018 and since November 2021
• Relaunched the Kyiv Post within a month of its November 2021 suspension
• Kept the newsroom publishing without interruption from the first day of the full-scale invasion
• Built an international audience: 97% of readers outside Ukraine and 6M+ monthly views across web and social (2023–24)
• NewsGuard 100% credibility and transparency rating (October 2023), a first for a Ukrainian outlet
• Named one of the top speakers of LOGIN 2026, Vilnius
• Advisory Board member, British Ukrainian Economic Future (since April 2026)
• Founder of 5th Element Advertising, Titanium Presentations, PLAN C and GNR8me

Why book Luc Chénier

• A story no consultant can tell. He has run a company in a capital at war since February 2022. The lessons come from decisions he made himself, not from case studies.
• Business first. The War Time CEO is a talk about preparation and growth. The war sets the stakes; the takeaways apply to any company facing disruption.
• Proven with audiences. Named one of the top speakers of LOGIN 2026, and has spoken at Web Summit in Lisbon and Doha.
• One story, many angles. The keynote adapts to crisis management, cyber resilience, team building, brand and international growth, and to the client’s industry.
• A marketer’s eye. Two decades of building agencies and brands for international companies and governments mean he speaks the language of commercial audiences, not only newsrooms.