After founding the TAS Group conglomerate in 1998,[10] Tihipko was Minister of Economics in 2000 and subsequently served as Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine from 2002 to 2004.

Tihipko was born on 13 February 1960 in the village of Drăgănești, Sîngerei, in the Lazovskiy district of the Moldavian SSR in a Ukrainian family who moved there from Podolia in 1902.

[11] Tihipko was first head of a department, and then deputy director for teaching and educational work at the Dnipropetrovsk Mechanical-Metallurgical Technical Secondary School from 1984 to 1986.

[11] Realising that there was a conflict of interest between his political role and his shareholding in Privat Bank, he divested himself of the shares[11] Tihipko served as the minister of economics (1997–1999).

After the election Tihipko temporarily left Ukrainian politics, resigning as Labour Ukraine leader on 23 April 2005,[17] to build up a bank which he sold to Swedbank group for nearly $1 billion.

He had an income of about $2.5 million in 2008 and told Kyiv Post he had spent roughly the same amount on his presidential campaign till December 2009.

[29][30][31] On 22 January 2010 Tihipko warned outgoing president Viktor Yushchenko could introduce a state of emergency during the transfer of power after the presidential election 2010.

Director of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko thought that this third-place by Tihipko could be explained by the fact that some voters started to consider Tihipko not only an alternative to the leader of the Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovych, but as an alternative to fellow candidate Arseniy Yatseniuk.

[40] On 11 February 2010 Tihipko stated that he would agree to become Prime Minister of Ukraine if President Victor Yanukovych offered him the post.

[41] On 17 February 2010 Tihipko stated that he had met Yanukovych twice after the election to discuss issues of the country's development and that he had reached no agreement with the parliamentary faction of the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc regarding their support of his candidacy for the post of Prime Minister.

[42] On 21 February 2010 President Yanukovych offered three candidates for the Prime Minister post: Tihipko, Our Ukraine faction member Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Party of Regions lawmaker Mykola Azarov.

[43] On 11 March 2010 Tihipko was elected as one of six deputy Prime Ministers (in charge of economic issues[44]) in the Azarov Government.

[45] This cabinet was reshuffled in December 2010; according to Deputy Head of the Situations Modelling Agency Oleksiy Holobutsky this resulted in Tihipko being responsible for all unpopular reforms.

[53] Tihipko did not return to a ministerial post after and hinted (in December 2012) that he would mainly deal with the ideology of Party of Regions since.

[54] He was one of the 36 members of the Party of regions faction (who consisted of 96 deputies) who voted in favour of the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

[57] According to the first poll published after Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the presidential race, as of 31 March Tihipko was running second at 17.9%, behind Petro Poroshenko (38.3%).

"[69] According to Tihipko (in January 2010) Ukraine is not yet ready to seek membership in the European Union or NATO and must first focus on forming a unified government that can stimulate the country's economy.

[27][65] In December 2012 Tihipko stated that European integration was more advantageous to Ukraine than accession to the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

[74] In the campaign he advocated Ukraine's non-aligned status "if we now start talking more about NATO – it completely will split the country.

[9] She is also managing director at a venture company which invests in online projects worldwide, and is considered to be one of the most successful businesswomen in Ukraine.