How to hire, fire, and develop talent in a newsroom, with The Kyiv Independent’s Daryna Shevchenko

In this episode, The Fix’s Anton Protsiuk sits down with Daryna Shevchenko, CEO of the Kyiv Independent, to unpack one of the toughest challenges in journalism: hiring and developing great people – especially under extreme pressure.

Daryna has overseen the outlet as it grew from an emergency startup launched four years ago to Ukraine’s most important English-language voice. The Kyiv Independent’s story is interesting in its own right, but we spend most of this conversation discussing hiring and managing talent in media organisations – and, yes, also how to fire people. Daryna shares a lot of lessons that can be useful to conventional publishers, especially in small and midsize newsrooms, but she also brings the added experience of running a media organization during a full-scale war. So you’ll learn a thing or two about crisis management as well.

(Editor’s note: disclosure – Daryna Shevchenko and a few other senior leaders of The Kyiv Independent are also co-founders of The Fix. This interview was recorded in November 2025).

Dive deeper:

• Learn more about Daryna Shevchenko on Linkedin
• Read The Fix’s coverage of The Kyiv Independent
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Music and background sounds: Epidemic sound