On Thursday, Serhii Koretskyi, CEO of Ukraine’s National Energy company, was appointed as the new prime minister—a figure who is not a typical choice to lead the government.

Unlike many senior Ukrainian government officials, the 48-year-old Koretskyi did not rise through political parties, parliament, or the civil service. A trained engineer, he began his career in the business world, spending more than 20 years managing companies in the fuel and food industries before being selected to lead some of Ukraine’s most troubled state-owned energy companies.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tasked him with leading the country through what officials expect to be the toughest winter of the war, due to Russian attacks. He is the third prime minister since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Just as lawmakers were voting to confirm Koretskyi, hundreds of protesters gathered in the city center, expressing their anger at Zelenskyy and accusing him of unfairly sidelining the popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov in this week’s sudden cabinet reshuffle.