Polina Aldoshyna is a Ukrainian lawyer and civic leader with over nine years of experience in law, public administration, and nonprofit management. She currently leads the BGV Charity Fund, overseeing social projects that support vulnerable communities. In addition, she serves as a Deputy of the Zhytomyr Regional Council, focusing on local governance and social policy. Throughout her career, Polina has managed over 60 humanitarian projects, including the establishment of psychosocial support centers and aid programs for displaced individuals and veterans.

Project: Institutionalizing Resilience Centers for Postwar Recovery 

Polina is currently working on transforming Ukraine’s emerging resilience centers—grassroots hubs that provide psychosocial support, legal aid, and essential services to displaced and vulnerable populations—into a sustainable, institutionalized model of community-based social infrastructure. While these centers have played a critical role in the war’s social response, many still lack unified standards, stable funding, and digital infrastructure, limiting their long-term impact.

Her project explores which governance structures — municipal, civic, or hybrid — are most viable in Ukraine’s decentralized context, how public, private, and donor financing can be blended to support long-term operations, and how digital tools, such as CRM systems and reporting platforms, can professionalize service delivery. Drawing on global models, such as Resilience Hubs in the United States, Polina aims to co-design a scalable framework for resilience centers that can be integrated into Ukraine’s broader post-war recovery strategy.

To support this work, Polina is interested in meeting with NGOs, charitable foundations, and private philanthropists who support Ukraine in the reconstruction of human social capital in the United States. She hopes to learn how democratic institutions adapt and deliver services during crisis and post-conflict transitions, as well as engage with scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of governance, social development, and recovery.
 

Oleksii Movchan is a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development, representing the “Servant of the People” faction. He chairs the subcommittee on public procurements and state property management, and is active in inter-parliamentary groups with the USA, UK, Japan, and others. Before parliament, he led projects at Prozorro.Sale. Oleksii holds degrees from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukrainian Catholic University, and Kyiv School of Economics. He has advanced key reforms in procurements, state-owned companies, and privatization to support Ukraine’s European Union integration.

Project: Improving Corporate Governance in Municipally-Owned Enterprises (MoEs) in Ukraine

Oleksii is currently working to improve the governance of Ukraine’s municipally owned enterprises (MoEs), which number nearly 14,000—more than triple the number of state-owned enterprises. While some MoEs serve as critical infrastructure providers in areas such as water, heating, and public transport, most operate without modern governance standards. Over 82% are unprofitable and many are subsidized, making them susceptible to inefficiency, mismanagement, and corruption. These shortcomings erode public trust, distort competition, and weaken essential service delivery.

His project focuses on designing and advocating for national legislation to institutionalize OECD-based governance practices across approximately 60 high-impact MoEs in 19 cities. Proposed measures include strategic property management policies, independent supervisory boards, transparent CEO selection, and robust audit, compliance, and risk management systems. The legislation also calls for standardized financial reporting and regular external audits to enhance transparency and creditworthiness.

To support this work, Oleksii is drawing on Ukraine’s pilot reforms in Mykolaiv and Lviv, as well as prior SOE governance reforms since 2015, and global best practices from EU and OECD countries. He is particularly interested in how institutional reform can advance anti-corruption goals and how reformers in other countries have successfully designed and implemented large-scale changes. He hopes to meet with Stanford faculty, civic technologists, and philanthropic organizations, such as the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Code for America, and the Skoll Foundation, to explore how policy and technology innovations can support municipal reform and Ukraine’s post-war recovery.
 

Maria Golub is a recognized expert on Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration, with deep expertise in EU-Ukraine bilateral relations. Based in Brussels, she currently serves as a Senior Political and Policy Advisor to Ukrainian leadership, where she advocates for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and supports the country’s advancement along the EU integration path through a decisive reform agenda. She is also actively involved in shaping Ukraine’s reconstruction strategy and is a strong proponent of the “build back better” principle, championing an ambitious revival plan for the country.

Project: Building a National Recovery Platform and Transatlantic Innovation Alliance

Maria is currently working to establish a national Coalition for Recovery—an inclusive, cross-sectoral platform designed to unify Ukraine’s defense, reconstruction, and reform agendas. As Ukraine faces the twin imperatives of resisting ongoing military aggression and laying the groundwork for long-term renewal, Maria’s project aims to ensure that recovery planning is not siloed but instead integrates priorities across security, governance, innovation, and transatlantic cooperation.

The Coalition will convene key domestic and international stakeholders to shape Ukraine’s internal reform agenda, embed EU and NATO-aligned governance standards, and streamline policy frameworks across recovery sectors. A core pillar of the project is embedding security priorities and military technological innovation directly into the recovery strategy, positioning defense modernization as a foundation — not a separate track — for rebuilding state capacity and competitiveness. In tandem, Maria is developing the concept for a large-scale technology and defense innovation alliance between Ukraine, the EU, and the United States. By fostering deeper collaboration in emerging technologies and military-industrial partnerships, the initiative seeks to contribute to Ukraine’s economic resurgence in 2025–2026 and anchor its strategic integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.

Maria is particularly interested in successful strategies and action plans that demonstrate how countries emerging from large-scale conflict can simultaneously pursue national recovery and build resilient, future-oriented security and defense architectures. She aims to explore cutting-edge developments in the tech and military tech sectors, as well as innovative tools like digital twin cities, to help design an integrated national revival plan. In addition, she hopes to deepen her understanding of how AI tools and techniques can support planning, coordination, and implementation across Ukraine’s postwar recovery landscape.
 

Alyona Nevmerzhytska is CEO of hromadske.ua, Ukraine’s leading independent online media platform. She began her career in 2012 at the Kyiv Post and has since focused on business development and organizational strategy. At hromadske, she has enhanced audience engagement and strengthened data-driven decision-making. Committed to building sustainable models for independent media, she ensures ethical newsroom operations and promotes democratic values. She is a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics, an Atlantic Council Millennium Fellow, and a 2024 McCain Institute Global Leader.

Project: Strengthening Independent Media for Postwar Accountability and Recovery

Alyona is currently working to build a more resilient and innovative media ecosystem in Ukraine that can serve as both a watchdog and a unifying force during the country’s postwar recovery. As CEO of Hromadske.ua, she is leading efforts to combine investigative journalism, compelling storytelling, and technological advancement with a focus on financial sustainability and editorial independence.

Her project explores how independent media can most effectively cover Ukraine’s complex reconstruction process — holding public institutions and international aid mechanisms accountable while also building trust across communities fractured by war. Alyona is particularly interested in leveraging technology, including AI tools, to enhance investigative capacity, analyze data, and uncover patterns of corruption or inefficiency in recovery efforts.

Through the SU-DD fellowship, she also seeks to explore global models for sustainable journalism beyond donor-driven funding, learning how to strengthen independent media institutions to ensure their long-term viability and public impact. A key area of inquiry is the ethical integration of AI into journalism, ensuring that innovation does not compromise transparency, integrity, or audience trust. Alyona is eager to connect with Stanford faculty in communication and business, as well as experts, to explore sustainable models for independent journalism and civil society resilience. She is also interested in meeting with philanthropic organizations, alongside tech leaders, and Ukrainian NGOs to strengthen partnerships that support innovative, mission-driven media.

Garry Piepenbrock, an economics and political science student, said that “seeing the variety of companies in China” was his favorite part of the program. He added, “there are a lot of big tech firms that we've had the privilege to visit, but also some of my favorite visits were the smaller manufacturers that had really interesting human stories behind them. The people working there and also the people running them. It's a difficult business. It's very competitive. And seeing that side of the Chinese economy was really cool.” 

Throughout the program AI emerged as a hot topic and focal area for China’s technological and economic advancement goals. Zane Sabbagh, a computer science and symbolic systems student, shared his insights on AI development in China, “given China's lag in the AI race, their model is to let one Chinese company win by open sourcing a lot of their models and then hosting other companies' models on their platform. So for example, Tencent’s chatbot and Alibaba chatbot both host DeepSeek’s models on their own app, which is super weird because ChatGPT would never host Anthropic or xAI on its own native iPhone app. That’s something I found super interesting.” 

Students also had the opportunity to compare their own academic experience through visits to multiple academic institutions in China. At the University of Hong Kong, students participated in a lecture given by Professor Zhiwu Chen on understanding Hong Kong’s history. At Peking University, students engaged with Vice Dean Li-An Zhou who gave a brief introduction on China’s economy. In addition to university exchanges, students also visited a migrant school in Beijing where they learned about the education system and connected with the young migrant students. Nazli Dakad, an earth systems student, reflected on the program and shared that, “one of my favorite parts of the trip was the migrant school. I thought that was super eye opening and contrasting to the tech focus that we've had, because it gave me a little more insight into the education system in China.”

Throughout the program students had the opportunity to engage with locals in various settings, from top executives, to factory workers, to locals out and about conducting their daily routines. Students also met with Stanford alumni based in China and learned about their career trajectories after graduation. Several students shared that building connections with people in China has been a highlight for them. Biology major Eva Shen shared, “being Chinese I feel like I've been very disconnected from China in the US, so being able to talk to all these people here [in Chinese] has been the best part for me…getting to hear their perspective, and actually getting to know them as people, has been my favorite part. When we did our interviews in the market back in Shenzhen, and we got to talk to older ladies, they reminded me of my own grandma.”

Cultural immersion was also woven throughout the journey. Students tried their hand at traditional arts such as paper cutting, brush calligraphy, and tea pan-frying; dressed in historical attire for an opera performance in Yiwu and a palace banquet in Hangzhou; and learned crafts like umbrella-making and handmade paper production. These activities provided a tangible connection to China’s long cultural heritage alongside its modern economic dynamism.

By the end of the program, participants had gained a multifaceted perspective on China—its economic drivers, its cultural traditions, and its evolving role on the world stage. “This program was about more than just observation—it was about engagement,” said SCCEI Co-director Hongbin Li. “Our students came away with firsthand experiences and conversations that will shape how they think about China for years to come.”

Discover more on our program page including student reflection videos, program photos, and more.

With insights spanning political economy, institutional economics, and history, Institutional Genes presents a compelling account of why China’s institutions have taken their particular form—why they have resisted democratization—and why its economic reforms have risen and fallen. Xu’s work will appeal to scholars, policymakers, and general readers seeking a deeper understanding of how China’s past continues to shape its political trajectory today. 

Institutional Genes: Origins of China's Institutions and Totalitarianism, previously published in Chinese, is currently available for pre-order and will be published and available to the public on August 21, 2025. For more from Xu, read his recent essay, The Origins of China’s Institutions and Totalitarianism, based on his forthcoming book.

When Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin left his home country of South Korea in 1983 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Washington, he was certain he would return to Korea upon graduation. More than 40 years later, Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is still in the United States. 

Yet he does not consider himself a case of brain drain for Korea. Shin, who is also the founding director of the Korea Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and APARC director, has continuously contributed to Korea by leading transnational collaborations, researching and publishing on pressing issues in Korean affairs, and otherwise engaging in diverse intellectual exchanges with the country.

Shin’s experiences sparked his interest in the sociological patterns of mobile talent and a central question: How do countries attract, develop, and retain talent in a globalized world? His new book, The Four Talent Giants (Stanford University Press, 2025), explores that question regarding transnational talent flows from a comparative lens by examining how four strikingly different Asia-Pacific nations – Japan, Australia, China, and India – have become economic powerhouses.

We interviewed Shin about his book – watch:

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The book’s main idea, Shin explains, is that how countries manage talent is key to their strength and future success. He calls the four Asia-Pacific nations the book examines “talent giants” because each has used a distinct talent strategy that has proven critical to national development. Three of these nations – China, Japan, and India – are among the top five economies in the world in terms of GDP, and Australia, despite its relatively small population size, is third in terms of wealth per adult.

In The Four Talent Giants, Shin investigates how these four nations have become global powers and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges, such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions, and what lessons their developmental paths hold for other countries.

A New Framework for Studying Human Resource Development 

Asia’s robust economic growth over the past forty years is nothing short of a remarkable feat. The Asia-Pacific today continues to be the world's fastest-growing region, despite global economic uncertainty. How did this phenomenal ascendance come about?

The existing literature has emphasized common “recipes” of success among Asia-Pacific powers. Endeavoring to find one-size-fits-all formulas that could be replicated in other countries seeking rapid development, it has overlooked the distinct developmental journeys of Asian nations. “We need a new lens, or framework, to explain their successes, while also accounting for cross-national variation in development and sustainability,” writes Shin. 

In his book, Shin examines talent – the skilled occupations essential to a nation’s economy – as a key driver of economic development. While all countries rely on human resources for development, their talent strategies vary based on historical, cultural, and institutional factors. Shin introduces a new framework, talent portfolio theory (TPT), inspired by financial portfolio theory, to analyze and compare these national approaches.

“TPT views a nation’s talent development, like financial investment, as constructing a ‘talent portfolio’ that mixes multiple forms of talent – domestic, foreign, and diasporic – adjusting its portfolio over time to meet new risks and challenges,” he explains. Just as an investor may select different financial products in a mix of assets, countries can create talent portfolios by picking from various strategies.

Shin identifies four main strategies by which a country can harness talent – what he calls the four B's: 

• “Brain train” signifies efforts to develop and expand a country’s domestic talent or human capital.
• “Brain gain” refers to attracting foreign talent to strengthen the domestic workforce.
• “Brain circulation” involves bringing back nationals who have gone abroad for work or study.
• “Brain linkage” means leveraging the global networks and expertise of citizens living overseas through transnational collaboration.

Shin uses TPT as an analytical framework to examine how each of the four talent giants has constructed its distinct national talent portfolio and how this portfolio has evolved. As in an investment portfolio rebalancing, a nation can maintain diversification across the four B's and within each B. TPT therefore offers a holistic framework for understanding the overall picture of a country’s talent strategy, and how and why it may “rebalance” its talent portfolio.

Throughout the book, Shin shows that, while Japan has relied on the brain train strategy, Australia, whose population was too small for such an approach, emphasized brain gain. China used brain circulation: it first sent students and professionals abroad to learn, then implemented policies to encourage them to return. India, by contrast, established linkages among its diaspora and used them to develop its economy.

New Geopolitics of Global Talent: Lessons and Policy Implications

The case studies of the four talent giants reveal that there is no single path to talent-driven development. Each of the four Asia-Pacific countries has built its unique talent portfolio, balancing human and social capital, homegrown and foreign-educated individuals, and domestic and diasporic talents. While the talent giants use all four B's to some extent, each emphasizes them differently, reflecting diverse strategies and development paths. The core findings of these studies offer valuable insights for countries aiming to design effective talent policies. 

The four B's were instrumental in the economic rise of the four Asian nations, and they will be equally critical in addressing new challenges facing all economies, from demographic crises to emergent geopolitical tensions. For the United States, one such challenge is its sprawling competition with China, where the battle for talent is heating up in the race for technological supremacy.

Shin warns that the advantage the United States has long held in technological innovation, driven by its ability to attract skilled foreign talent, is now at risk from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, pressures on universities, and cuts to research funding. “Immigrants have not just filled jobs,” he emphasizes. “They have created new industries and helped the US and their home countries. If the US makes it harder for talent to come in and stay, it risks hurting its long-term success.”

The Four Talent Giants is an outcome of Shin’s longstanding project investigating Talent Flows and Development, now one of the research tracks he leads at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which he launched in 2022. Housed at APARC, the lab is an interdisciplinary research initiative addressing Asia’s social, cultural, economic, and political challenges through comparative, policy-relevant studies. SNAPL’s education mission is to cultivate the next generation of researchers and policy leaders by offering mentorships and fellowship opportunities for students and emerging scholars.

Shin notes that the SNAPL team illustrates all four B’s in his talent portfolio theory, as some members are U.S.-born and trained, some come from Asia and, after working at the lab, return to their home countries, whereas some stay here, promoting linkages with their home countries. “In many ways, this project shows what is possible when we invest in talent and encourage international collaboration.”

In the Media

Stanford Scholar Reveals How Talent Development Strategies Shape National Futures
The Korean Daily, July 13, 2025 (interview)
- English version
- Korean version