Today we’d like to introduce you to Gala Glow.
Hi Gala Glow, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m a Ukrainian entrepreneur based in North Carolina, building my work across countries and cultures.
I started my first business at 19, and over the past 20 years I’ve launched and led 8 businesses. What stayed constant is my fascination with how ideas turn into real systems, and how women build businesses differently when they stop trying to fit into someone else’s model.
I built most of my career in Ukraine, and I continue to run businesses there today — including a daycare network in Kyiv. That means operating in the middle of a full-scale war, making decisions in conditions most people never have to face, and still showing up for your team, your clients, and your responsibilities.
A few years ago, I moved to the US with my two kids, protecting them from the war and at the same time expanding my work globally. Today I work with women entrepreneurs internationally and build an ecosystem that connects business strategy with a deeper, more embodied way of leadership.
For me, business has never been just about growth. It’s about creating a life that actually feels good to live — with money, impact, freedom, and desire all existing in the same space.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, but the challenges were never just about business.
I built my work in Ukraine, a country that has been rapidly evolving over the past decades, where you grow together with the environment around you. I started my first business at 19, and one of my first major projects — a daycare network — I launched in 2014, the year the war began. It was a real, operational business with teams, spaces, and daily responsibility, built in a reality that was already unstable.
At the same time, I was building a family, raising kids, and expanding my work with a clear desire to create a life where business, money, and personal fulfillment all exist together.
Then came COVID. By that time, I already had a community of women entrepreneurs, and it became not only about navigating uncertainty for myself, but also about supporting others through it. And not long after, the full-scale war in Ukraine completely reshaped reality. Business decisions became deeply human decisions — about safety, relocation, responsibility for teams, and continuing to move forward when everything around you is falling apart.
Moving to the US added another layer. I arrived with my two kids, building life from scratch in a new country, while continuing to run businesses in Ukraine remotely and at the same time developing a new global direction for my work here.
That experience raised a lot of questions — about scale, identity, and what kind of life we are actually building. Today, I explore and create this through my work and ecosystem, developing a model of leadership designed for a world in constant change — where a woman can lead, create, earn, and fully choose the life she wants to live.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I work internationally as a business strategist and speaker, helping women entrepreneurs build and scale businesses in a rapidly changing world — shaped by AI, global markets, and constant uncertainty.
My work is both practical and deeply personal. I support founders in making clear decisions, structuring their business models, and growing sustainable, profitable companies. At the same time, I look at something many traditional approaches ignore — how a woman’s energy, desires, and way of living directly impact the business she builds.
I also speak internationally on new models of leadership and business — how to grow and lead in a world that no longer follows predictable rules.
One of the ecosystems I’ve built is Zagrava Women, an international community that originally brought together Ukrainian women entrepreneurs and is now expanding globally — creating a space where business, leadership, and real-life decisions come together in a very practical way.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I see risk as a necessary part of growth. The bigger the vision, the more risk it requires.
Over time, I’ve learned that most decisions in business don’t come with certainty. You choose a direction, you move, and you take responsibility for what comes next. Some risks bring strong results, others bring experience — but both expand your capacity.
What I see very often, especially working with women founders, is that risk is deeply connected to fear. Not only fear of losing, but also fear of succeeding — because success changes your life, your identity, your environment, and not everyone is ready for that level of change.
One moment changed my relationship with risk completely. When the full-scale war started in Ukraine, I felt a very real fear for my life. And in that moment, everything else — business risks, doubts, hesitation — lost its weight. It all became secondary.
After that, I became much more decisive in business. I started moving toward things I had been postponing for years — including building my work globally — simply because I was no longer willing to hold myself back out of fear.
I often think about how many decisions we delay because we are afraid to take the risk — and how much we don’t create because of that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://galaglowglobal.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/galaglow.global/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/galyna.shostak
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galyna-shostak-a8a72062/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GalaGlowGlobal
