The CEO of the Ukrainian media Kyiv PostLuc Chénier, will be back in his native country on November 28, the day before his 50e anniversary, at the Ontario Premier’s Awards, an event celebrating outstanding Ontario college graduates.
Twenty-five years ago, the St. Lawrence College alum heard from a professor that he “had no chance of becoming anybody.” Today, he is the establishment’s nominee for a major award. A turnaround that the Franco-Ontarian finds funny, but which delights him.
A native of Alexandria, in Eastern Ontario, Luc Chénier now lives in Croatia. He arrived in Ukraine in 2000 to pursue a career in advertising. The Franco-Ontarian admits he was lucky: he was in the right place at the right time. The country’s economy then began to grow. “Capitalism was coming in,” he says.
Luc Chénier became CEO of the Kyiv Post in 2016, before leaving his post two years later to launch his own advertising agency, Plan C.
On November 11, 2021, after the controversial departure three days earlier of almost the entire newsroom due to a dispute with the owner of the newspaper, Luc Chénier returned to the fold of the Kyiv Post. The Ontarian is not angry with the journalists, who say they were fired and who then formed the Kyiv Independent – a rival media – although he believes that a lack of communication led to this misunderstanding.
Be that as it may, his decision to pilot a media outlet in the midst of a storm surprised many. And that was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Luc Chénier has since “revived the Kyiv Posttransforming it into a respected journal at a critical time,” point out the organizers of the Prime Minister’s Awards.
The newspaper’s CEO had plans for expansion, but the war thwarted them. Initially, the Franco-Ontarian did not expect to stay in the post for more than a year; today, he wants to be sure to bequeath a “cursed good foundation” to his successor.
Work during the war
Luc Chénier responds to the video call from To have to on November 23, a second phone in hand. Russia is carrying out “very heavy bombardments everywhere in Ukraine”, explains the leader of the Kyiv Post. Russian strikes have hit energy infrastructure, and parts of the country are plunged into darkness. “I work with my team, I try to see what is happening with the generators,” he explains. The CEO is in full crisis management.
For several months, Luc Chénier did this work, mostly at night, from a Montreal bedroom. The Franco-Ontarian had returned to the country with difficulty at the start of the conflict. And even if his family waited impatiently for him and his wife, Irina, the latter cannot obtain a visa. Shocked by the situation, he contacted Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff and his communications chief.
In mid-March 2022, Luc Chénier set foot in Alexandria again to visit the breasts, then headed to Montreal. But then he realized that he “wasn’t really Canadian anymore,” he says. “In Canada, I was just the guy who ran away from Ukraine. Starting over at 50 didn’t appeal to me. Especially since his work in Ukraine brings him into contact with big names in the political world. “Ukraine is addictive. It is impossible, after having lived the experience, not to want to come back, ”he wrote in 2018.
Last month, Luc Chénier returned to Europe, where he now feels “at home”; he settled in Croatia to be closer to his Ukrainian journalists.
The office of Kyiv Post is now less toxic and its journalism more balanced, he rejoices. The Franco-Ontarian now wants his media to invest more in investigative journalism. “You have to become a little more critical, but not to the point where you destroy a country either,” he says.
Monday evening, in Toronto, Luc Chénier will be one of the 18 candidates in the running for the Ontario Premier’s Award in the Business category. “If I win, wow! But if I don’t win, it’s not the end of the world, he said. Canada, once again, shows that even if I am not here, I am still part of the country. […] You can go to the other side of the world, you will always be Canadian. »
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.