Leadership
Pavlo Verkhniatskyi
Managing Partner, Director
Pavlo is an expert in sophisticated integrity due diligence with an international component. He also leads research on country and political risks, conducts cross-border investigations and asset tracing for the benefit of global corporate players. Pavlo provides COSA’s clients with in-depth understanding of behind-the-scenes particularities of business relations and country specifics.
Prior to establishing COSA, Pavlo worked as a risk analyst in Moscow, focusing on financial and industrial business groups based in Russia and other post-Soviet states. Requested by international businesses and European embassies, he also monitored and analysed the economic and political activities inside Russia and its foreign policy, as well as in Central Asia and Caucasus, building a strong knowledge of the region.
For several years, Pavlo acted as a consultant to foreign companies involved in international trade activities within the FSU, Balkans, Africa, Latin America and Asia. With a specialisation, in the arms trade market his field of expertise included support of cross-border commercial transactions, security and compliance risk assessment, as well as informational and analytical facilitation in international tenders.
Pavlo holds a Master’s degree in International Economics.
Safian Khan
Partner
Safian is an expert in international strategic management. Safian’s key work focuses on strategic decision making working alongside his clients to solve issues, create value, maximise growth facilitating them to expand their operations internationally and improve business performance. All in all, he has a broad understanding of business operations in an international context.
To date, Safian has played strategic roles in the development of various initiatives including the transformation of the strategic role of a political party, carrying out risk assessments for international actors of the threats faced to them by non-state actors, playing a key role for the expansion of an oil company amidst the tensions in the Gulf, initiating and forming a strategic alliance between two competitors in the ship management industry, amongst others.
Safian holds an MA in International Relations from Regents University London.
Nikolay Kolesnikov
Partner
Nikolay is an expert in forensic, internal control and financial analysis. He builds a unique combination of security and growth for COSA’s clients with a focus on safe expansion.
He has more than ten years of experience in private equity, M&A, corporate finance, controlling, and forensic. Nikolay started his career as an auditor for the Big-4 consultancies, where he was responsible for audit & compliance, as well as identification and evaluation of business processes. He was dedicated to corporate finance, financial analysis, and risk management, which allowed him to join big industrial holdings and master his skills there.
He worked at the largest multinational telecommunications, metallurgic and mining companies, where he gained expertise in strategic financial planning, management accounting, business process improvement, and forensic. He also managed multijurisdictional teams in an international venture fund where he applied his knowledge of investment management, as well as domain product ownership. The experience he gained over the course of his career gave him an understanding of the different ways business is done in such countries as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Tanzania and others.
Nikolay is a member of the ACCA and has both the CIA and the CFE licence.