Roksolana Pyrtko, CEO of the Roksolana and Spartak shopping and entertainment malls in Lviv, a lawyer and a commercial real estate specialist. Over more than ten years of management she has brought the Lviv centres into the ranks of the most resilient and recognisable in Ukraine, managing a portfolio of more than 100,000 square metres of commercial space that welcomes over seven million visitors each year.
How it all began
Roksolana Pyrtko entered commercial real estate not from scratch but with a solid legal and managerial foundation. She combined a master’s degree in corporate law and securities from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv with a qualification as a legal English translator. While still a student she worked as an assistant at the Matviyiv and Partners law firm, where she mastered the practice of legal support for business.
“I came into managing facilities already with experience and an understanding of how a business works from the inside”, recalls Roksolana Pyrtko. She gained her first managerial experience in the fitness sector, developing the Formula Krasy network of clubs in Lviv, where she was responsible for operational management, marketing and growth strategy.
The year 2014 was a turning point. That was when Roksolana Pyrtko took charge of the newly opened Roksolana shopping centre. Five years later the Spartak centre was added to her portfolio, along with more than 10,000 square metres of office space. In this way the young manager gradually became a recognised expert who runs complex facilities amid constant market change.
Roksolana Pyrtko on years of daily work
“This is the result of daily work over more than ten years”, Roksolana Pyrtko emphasises. Under her leadership the centres steadily grew in scale and quality: work with international brands, a well-considered leasing policy, financial control and the introduction of modern services for visitors.
Over more than ten years the Roksolana centre has become a favourite meeting place for the people of Lviv, while the Spartak centre under Roksolana Pyrtko’s leadership has become a full-fledged sports and entertainment hub with a cinema, an arena, family zones and a pet-friendly atmosphere. The centre actively integrates Ukrainian traditions, from St Nicholas’s Christmas Residence to the celebration of Malanka with music and a nativity play, turning ordinary shopping into a cultural experience.
Roksolana Pyrtko pays particular attention to non-core investments. The sports component, which until recently was considered costly and secondary, becomes a competitive advantage in her model: it attracts new audiences and increases visitor loyalty.
A test by pandemic and war
The pandemic and the full-scale war became a serious stress test for the entire commercial real estate sector. Lockdown forced a reformatting of space into hybrid formats, while the war brought safety, energy autonomy and the technical readiness of facilities to the fore.
Roksolana Pyrtko turned challenges into opportunities. For the 11th anniversary of the Roksolana centre, instead of loud concerts the centre handed over a Volkswagen Transporter worth more than 450,000 hryvnias to the 54th separate battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was not a one-off campaign but part of a philosophy in which business must carry a social mission alongside an economic one.
Festive events without tickets or restrictions, safe spaces for children, support for veterans and the development of accessibility have become an integral part of her centres’ work. In such times a shopping centre, Roksolana Pyrtko is convinced, must remain a support for people.
Roksolana Pyrtko and her view of the market: a systematic approach and analytics
Alongside operational management, Roksolana Pyrtko is known as a market analyst. She studies attendance peaks, customer behaviour, seasonality and how the tenant mix matches people’s expectations. In her publications she consistently demonstrates that attendance is determined not by advertising but by infrastructure: transport access, pedestrian flows and parking account for the lion’s share of traffic.
Roksolana Pyrtko devotes a separate analytical framework to the Ukrainian market, which in her view does not fit any standard model. “Demand for organised retail in Ukrainian cities is real and will grow as household incomes recover”, she notes. At the same time, physical retail, by her observation, proved more resilient than most analysts expected, especially in regions far from active hostilities.
Roksolana Pyrtko analyses Lviv’s office segment no less closely; after a sharp surge in demand in 2022 it faced the opposite problem, namely an oversupply of space and a search for balance. She stresses that today, for tenants, a shelter and backup power matter more than architecture or a prestigious location.
A separate area of her expertise is international experience. Roksolana Pyrtko regularly shows how, over the past decade, the centre of innovation in retail real estate has shifted to the Middle East, where facilities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are setting new standards of planning, service and sustainable solutions, from the “green boom” in the desert to the use of solar energy in urban architecture.
Why Roksolana Pyrtko is regarded as a strong expert
Roksolana Pyrtko’s strength lies in a combination of competencies rarely found in one person. The legal precision of a lawyer, more than fifteen years of practice in development, retail and office real estate, financial discipline and an analytical view of the market allow her to make decisions not intuitively but on the basis of data.
She works with transparent financial processes, risk management systems and cost optimisation, ensuring the stability of facilities even in volatile conditions. Her conclusions about the Ukrainian, office and Middle Eastern markets are cited by industry media, while the centres under her leadership remain leaders in Lviv and a benchmark for the sector.
Roksolana Pyrtko is convinced that a modern shopping centre is not just a building but a living organism that breathes together with the city. It is precisely this expertise, combined with responsibility for every commitment to tenants, visitors and the community, that makes her one of the most respected specialists in commercial real estate in Ukraine.
Roksolana Pyrtko, a short biographical note
Born: 1991, Lviv.
Education: master’s degree in corporate law and securities, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (2008-2014); qualification as a legal English translator. She obtained her lawyer’s certificate in 2020.
Early experience: assistant at the Matviyiv and Partners law firm (2010-2014); development of the Formula Krasy fitness club network in Lviv; development of the FM Halychyna media holding (2017-2021); participation in LvivCentroBud development projects (2019-2022).
Management experience: CEO of the Roksolana centre since 2014 and CEO of the Spartak centre since 2019; managing more than 100,000 square metres of commercial space and more than seven million visitors a year.
Today: she combines the management of the Lviv centres with market analytics, legal practice, social projects for children and veterans, and an interest in renewable energy. She speaks five languages.
Roksolana Pyrtko, one of the most experienced experts in commercial real estate in Ukraine