Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova, or sometimes called Alyona Dehrik, is shaping a bold new chapter in her career. As her era of leading projects in Ukraine nears its close, she is setting her sights firmly on Europe, the Middle East, and the UK.
Through SENDS, her innovative digital payments platform, and the LEO Foundation, which has already supported refugee families and delivered vital medical aid, education, and humanitarian relief across Ukraine, Alyona Dehrik is proving that fintech growth and social responsibility can go hand in hand on a global scale. Her next moves position her as a modern leader who combines business vision with tangible impact far beyond her home country’s borders.
Building Strategic Bridges with Eastern European Talent
Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova is increasingly seen as a bridge between Eastern European innovation and Western business ecosystems. With deep roots in Kyiv’s tech and academic sectors, she is now creating talent pipelines to integrate Ukrainian developers, creatives, and fintech professionals into global teams via her ventures.
Through SENDS and Leo Messenger, Alyona Dehrik is known to source and collaborate with Ukrainian tech experts, helping them remain professionally active despite ongoing instability. Her approach not only scales her ventures efficiently but also helps preserve and promote Ukraine’s innovation economy abroad.
A Fintech Visionary: The Rise of SENDS
At the forefront of Alyona Dehrik’s international push is SENDS, a financial technology company she developed through SMARTFLOW PAYMENTS LIMITED, where she remains a person of significant control. Authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money Institution since 2017, SENDS provides a robust all-in-one solution for secure money transfers, multi-currency accounts, and business payment operations.
SENDS combines direct partnerships with major networks from Mastercard, Visa, China Union Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Garmin Pay, with a fully integrated platform that gives clients access to dedicated IBANs, same-day payouts, SEPA, SWIFT, and UK Local Payment capabilities.
Today, SENDS processes over 30 million transactions per year, with an annual turnover of around €1.8 billion, generating approximately €50 million in revenue and €15 million in net profit.
Designed for flexibility and security, SENDS enables individuals and businesses to move money across 180+ countries, manage multi-currency accounts, and handle acquiring through a unified interface. 24/7 support and stringent compliance oversight reflect Alyona Dehrik’s broader commitment to building reliable, transparent financial tools that meet the demands of a globally mobile user base across Europe, the Middle East, and the UK.
By combining her track record in payments technology with real-world business operations and international partnerships, Alyona Dehrik positions SENDS as a scalable bridge between regions, proof of how focused fintech leadership can expand responsibly beyond national borders.
Championing Female Empowerment in Business and Tech
Beyond her entrepreneurial ventures, Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova is recognized as a strong advocate for women in business and technology. As the Director and 100% shareholder of Leo Partners LLC, she actively backs female-led startups and initiatives, complementing her ongoing support for women’s programs at Taras Shevchenko University.
Through speaking engagements and mentorship programs in cities like Warsaw and Dubai, Alyona emphasizes the importance of gender inclusivity in fintech, innovation, and executive leadership. Her growing international presence underscores a personal commitment to making entrepreneurship more accessible and boardrooms more inclusive for the next generation of women leaders.
The Role of Leo Partners: Scaling For Regulation and Reach
To ensure her ecosystem thrives across multiple territories, Alyona Dehrik established Leo Partners, rooted in Cyprus with active offices in London. Leo Partners functions as a strategic base, facilitating compliance with EU and UK finance regulation, managing corporate structure, and enabling investor relations.
By situating SENDS, Leo Messenger, and more under this umbrella, she enhances regional licensing readiness and positions for future cross-border expansion, an essential asset in today’s regulated fintech landscape.
The Power of Leo Messenger: Community Through Connection
Complementing her payments work with SENDS, Alyona Dehrik leads Leo Messenger, a London–headquartered platform that treats privacy as a baseline requirement rather than a premium feature. Built with end-to-end encryption (E2EE) at its core, every text, voice note, and file is converted into a cipher that only the intended recipient can decode.
Even if traffic is intercepted in transit, the data remains unreadable to third parties, an approach that satisfies both individual users and compliance-minded firms.
Beyond one-to-one chats, Leo Messenger offers group conversations, disappearing messages, high-quality audio/video calls, and a “Leo PIN” screen-lock for added on-device protection. A cross-platform architecture (iOS, Android, and forthcoming desktop release) keeps migrant workers, expatriate families, and distributed project teams connected across Europe, the Middle East, and the UK.
While the app stands alone, its design anticipates deeper integration with SENDS: E2EE-protected payment confirmations and peer-to-peer transfers can flow naturally inside chats without exposing sensitive metadata. In practice, Leo Messenger extends Alyona Dehrik’s broader vision, delivering practical, secure tools that help geographically dispersed communities communicate and transact with confidence.
Humanitarian Leadership via the Leo Foundation
Perhaps the most impactful aspect of Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova’s work lies in her humanitarian leadership through the Leo Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing critical assistance to children and families affected by the war in Ukraine. Since 2022, the Foundation has directly aided more than 500 refugee families from occupied regions, delivering targeted medical, educational, and humanitarian support.
In the medical sector, the Foundation funded surgeries for 23 children, including trauma treatment and congenital heart surgeries, collaborating closely with Ukraine’s Dobrobut hospital network. Additionally, it upgraded essential equipment at Odesa Maternity Hospital No. 1, which manages around 3,000 births annually.
Educational initiatives include scholarships for 15 students at the Kyiv Institute of International Relations and renovation of five lecture halls and a fully-equipped computer lab benefiting 3,500 students each year. The Foundation also provided free first-aid training to 71 participants, including military personnel, teachers, and volunteers.
Humanitarian activities encompass installing water purification systems for five hospitals in Mykolaiv Oblast, distributing over 4,000 aid kits to displaced families, supplying 1,000 sets of tactical gear to frontline personnel, and delivering drones, specialized equipment, trench candles, and vehicles instrumental in the liberation of Kharkiv Oblast.
Guided by her principle that “charity should be efficient, targeted, unifying, and motivating,” Alyona has transformed the Leo Foundation into a symbol of compassion and practical support, actively engaging with community mentorship and financial literacy initiatives that uplift and empower the region. Her hands-on leadership style underscores genuine solidarity, trust, and meaningful change.
A small fun fact about Alyona:
While most of her focus is on fintech and humanitarian projects, she also brings her eye for quality to the beauty industry. LEO Beauty Club, which started in Kyiv, now has locations in Warsaw and Dubai, offering curated wellness treatments and luxury services that reflect her signature blend of innovation and elegant detail.
A Future Defined by Empathy, Innovation, and Global Reach
Alyona Dehrik-Shevtsova illustrates how modern leadership can fuse commercial success with measurable social value. By scaling SENDS across Europe, the Middle East, and the UK, steering the privacy-first Leo Messenger, and directing the Leo Foundation’s life-saving medical, educational, and humanitarian programs, she has created an integrated model where fintech efficiency underwrites real-world impact.
Her trajectory is not merely about expanding product lines; it is about strengthening communities, advancing secure digital finance, and championing inclusive opportunity, especially for women in business and technology. As she shifts her center of gravity from Ukraine to the broader international arena, Alyona Dehrik continues to demonstrate that global growth and social responsibility can—and should—advance together.
