Who we are
BrainGain.Expert is a non-profit impact accelerator for businesses in fragile and recovering economies. We connect them with experts (Fellows) ready to apply their knowledge where it matters most.
The team
Two strategists and operators, one shared conviction: the expertise a recovering economy needs already exists. It just has to reach the businesses that need it.
Oksana Pashchenko
Oksana Pashchenko is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of BrainGain.Expert. A business strategist, board advisor and operator with more than 20 years of experience across sectors, she has helped build and scale businesses from early-stage startups to large enterprises with global operations, including as Vice President of Global Strategy. She is the Founder and Principal of go:lofty, a growth architecture studio, and the author of Growth Architecture 2.0. Oksana holds a Global MBA from ESMT Berlin and was part of the Young Voices delegation at the inaugural Berlin Global Dialogue in 2023. At BrainGain.Expert she brings this combination to economic recovery, applying the method she set out in her published book, Growth Architecture 2.0, where it matters most: turning scarce expertise into capability that stays with the businesses that need it.
LinkedIn→
Kateryna Nadtochii
Kateryna Nadtochii is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of BrainGain.Expert. A PR expert with 17 years of experience, she has spent more than a decade leading communication projects for Uklon, OLX Global, Starlight Media, Veon, Kyivstar, PRP Group (a Weber Shandwick affiliate) and Carlsberg Ukraine, and delivered corporate and change communications in transformation projects across Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Central Asia. She holds a Global MBA from ESMT Berlin, with further training in behavioral economics (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) and fundraising (HEC Paris), and was part of the Young Voices delegation at the inaugural Berlin Global Dialogue in 2023. She is currently a participant in the Advancing Sustainable Development program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Today she applies this experience to social technology.
LinkedIn→BrainGain.Expert brings together people who know how to build, run and rebuild businesses, and puts their expertise to work where economies are recovering. We start with Ukraine.
BrainGain.Expert Foundation
The non-profit home of our programs and grants, accountable to donors and partners, executing the long-term vision and program pipeline for 2026-2030 and beyond.
BrainGain.Expert Fellowship
A global community of strategists, operators, senior professionals and academics who contribute their expertise from anywhere in the world.
BrainGain.Expert Business Accelerator Platform
The platform where businesses and Fellows meet, work together, build capabilities and track what changes.
What we do
BrainGain.Expert is a non-profit impact accelerator. We work as a remote bridge between global professional talent and growing businesses in fragile and recovering economies.
We coordinate the collaboration end to end, so that every hour of expertise makes a local business stronger and the local economy more resilient.
For businesses
Diagnosis
We start from the real gap in the business: strategy, operations, people, digitalization or new markets.
Curated shortlist of Fellows
Professionals who have solved the same problem before. The owner interviews them and makes the choice.
Capabilities that stay
Processes, skills and decisions remain inside the company after the work is done.
For professionals
Fractional roles
Part-time leadership inside a growing business, for example as a finance, operations or technology lead, worked remotely over months.
Paid projects
Defined, fixed-scope projects solved alongside the local team, with the capability handed over when the work is done.
Cross-border experience and peers
New markets and sectors, plus the BrainGain.Expert Fellowship: a global network of senior professionals, operators and academics.
For partners and donors
Donors fund project time
Contributions pay for diagnosis, Fellow time and the transition, with results reported in public.
Technology partners supply tools
Software, licenses and AI credits go to a shared Resource Pool for businesses and Fellows.
Independence by design
Partners never buy access to the businesses we serve. Need decides the match.
The outcomes
Six outcomes we contribute to, measured in the businesses and people we work with and reported in our annual reports. We count what lasts after the funded period, not activity during it.
Businesses that keep growing
Higher revenue and productivity in the businesses we work with, still rising after the funded period ends.
Jobs created and kept
Roles created or filled in participating businesses, and still in place a year later.
Technology that sticks
Digital tools, automation and AI introduced in the program and still in daily use a year later.
Skills for tomorrow's economy
Fellows and business teams build new skills together, based on what businesses actually need and where technology is heading.
Brain gain, not brain drain
Professionals abroad put their expertise back to work at home, by returning or by contributing remotely in real roles.
Ready for recovery projects
Businesses able to bid for, win and deliver reconstruction and public recovery contracts.
Our impact
counts
In a fragile economy, a business that keeps running is impact. It keeps people in work, pays suppliers and taxes, and holds the skills a country needs to recover. That is why we do not limit our programs to social enterprises: we work with any small or medium business ready to do the work, and we measure what changes. We work the way venture philanthropists do: we fund expertise, stay engaged from diagnosis to implementation, and release grants only to businesses that put the change into practice.
Our theory of change
When a business gains the expertise and people it lacks, it solves an immediate operational problem and builds management and technical capabilities that stay after the engagement ends.
Across a cohort, we expect these firm-level gains to show up as higher productivity, jobs retained and created, and stronger links to suppliers and export markets. Over time, this contributes to a more resilient private sector and a broader tax base. We test each step of this chain through independent evaluation.
What we measure
We track results at every stage: businesses diagnosed, projects completed against target, and roles filled and retained at 6 and 12 months. Two tests define success: people retained and capabilities the team runs on its own.
A role counts only if it would not have been filled without the program, and failed placements are reported with the reason. Results are evaluated independently and published every year.
Our contribution to the SDGs
SDG 8, Decent work and economic growth: the growth of small and medium businesses (target 8.3) and full, productive employment (target 8.5), measured through net jobs and people moved into qualified work.
SDG 17, Partnerships for the goals: one model that connects businesses, experts, funders and technology partners, so that private expertise and public funding work toward the same results (target 17.17).
SDGs are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a shared agenda for 2030.
Support the
Foundation
Individual donations
Whether you have worked in a fragile economy or simply believe expertise is aid, your gift helps a local business get the people it needs to start, recover or grow.
How we accept gifts →Make a donation
Sponsorship and partnership
Companies and foundations can support the BrainGain.Expert Foundation, sponsor a specific program and raise its priority, or contribute technology to the BrainGain.Expert Resource Pool. Let's build it together.
Learn more→