Giorgi Arveladze

Giorgi Arveladze (გიორგი არველაძე, born July 10, 1978) is a Georgian politician who served as the Minister of Economic Development from 2006 to 2008 under President Mikheil Saakashvili. Arveladze is an ally of Saakashvili and played a central role in the Rose Revolution of November 2003.

Education
In 1993, Arveladze spent a year studying abroad in the United States and said it "inspired" his later career. Many members of the Saakashvili government that Arveladze worked with, also attended schools in the United States.

Arveladze attended Tel Aviv University from 1997 to 1998, studying political science. In 1999, he studied at Tbilisi State University, earning a bachelor's degree in international relations. In 2000, he earned a master's degree from the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs.

Georgian Politics
From 1995 to 1998, Arveladze worked at several youth-focused non-governmental organizations. He then worked as a defense and national security consultant for the Georgian Parliament for several years. From January to October 2001, Arveladze worked as the Director of Penitentiary reforms under Minister of Justice, Mikheil Saakashvili. In October 2001, he was appointed the first secretary general for Saakashvili's new party, United National Movement (UNM). He would serve as secretary general for UNM, until stepping down on December 29, 2006 to focus on his new role of Minister of Economic Development.

Arveladze was a member of parliament, from April 2004 to October 2005. He was a member of the Defense and Security Committee and the Committee On European Integration. He headed Georgia's parliamentary permanent delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. From October 2005 to November 2006, he served as the Head of Administration, or Chief of Staff, for Saakashvili's government.

On November 20, 2006, he was appointed Minister of Economic Development following the resignation of his precursor Irakli Okruashvili. Kakha Damenia, a deputy under Arveladze, was found guilty for neglect of official duties in January 2020. Tamara Kovziridze, another deputy under Arveladze, now works for Reformatics, a boutique consulting firm.

Ukrainian Politics
In 2012, Arveladze moved to Ukraine with his wife, a native Ukrainian. Two years later he emerged as a member of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko's party Batkivschina after her release from prison. Timoshenko introduced her party members on the TV program Shuster LIVE on October 24, 2014, and named Arveladze as a representative of Georgia's reformist government.