Independent Women’s Forum is delighted to announce that Maria Semykoz, free-market advocate and Ukrainian-born entrepreneur, is the latest in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.

Maria’s admiration for the free market wasn’t entirely the product of reading and going to conferences, though. She acquired her ideals the hard way, by growing up in the Ukraine, still a part of the old Soviet Union when she was born. Even though her parents were professionals, the family was just getting by.

“One of the big emotional moments for me was when I first went to an Ikea store,” she says. “When I saw the inside of the Ikea store, I almost cried. We never had things like that. It would have been a dream. And I just knew for a fact my parents worked hard and that in the free system they would have been absolutely able to afford this.”

Semykoz, who studied in the U.S. on a Fulbright and now lives in London, and three friends have launched a business called What’s In My Jar to help consumers evaluate the claims made by cosmetic companies. She says that there is s new move to impose stricter regulations on the cosmetic industry. “Instead of legislating and putting constraints on companies,” Maria says, “why not empower the consumer and give them better information to make choices? That is the mission of What’s In My Jar.”

We know you will enjoy meeting this outstanding young woman and learning how a shared love for Austrian School economist started a romance that led to marriage.