Welcome back to Three Things. Today's guest is Natalie Juresco, the former finance minister of Ukraine.

Natalie grew up near Chicago, the daughter of immigrants, who fled Ukraine during the man-made famine of Joseph Stalin.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Natalie moved to Ukraine and worked there for 25 years with dreams of transforming it from a communist country

to a capitalist market. She may be best known for her role in helping Ukrainians recover

from the financial and humanitarian crisis that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In today's episode, she reflects on how the current war in Ukraine will have direct, lasting

impacts on the entire world for months and years to come.

Rick and Natalie originally met in Puerto Rico, where Rick is building a new economic growth

engine through Red Ventures, Puerto Rico, and where Natalie was most recently tasked with

pulling the island out of bankruptcy, restructuring about $64 billion worth of debt.

This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at Red Ventures, and trust me by the end there was not a dry eye in the house, where Natalie reminded us of the tragic realities of war, but more importantly, the power of resilience and hope.

Inspired by her words, Rick made a personal commitment to use his platform to help make a difference.

This is three things with Natalie Goresco.

Natalie, welcome to Charlotte.

Thank you for having me.

I collect a few things, one being bad wine, but another one is great friends.

And it is interesting because sometimes it takes a period of time to build a friendship,

and sometimes it's an instant friendship.

And Natalie and I have some very good mutual friends in common,

and now as part of our real investment in Puerto Rico,

they say, you have to meet Natalie.

And it wasn't all but six months ago that, you know, we met at your office and 10 minutes

...