| Friday, May 9, 2025 10:00 a.m. – 11:15 p.m. (EST) |
| Virtual Event Recording |
Hosted by George Washington University.
Click Here to Join Zoom Session
SPEAKER BIOS
Thomas Mayne is a Director at Freedom for Eurasia. His research focuses on anti-money laundering legislation, especially in regard to grand corruption and kleptocracy. He is also a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, and a former Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. For twelve years he worked as a Senior Campaigner for Global Witness, an anti-corruption NGO that works to end the exploitation of natural resources, and was responsible for investigations in Eurasia.
Leila Nazgul Seiitbek, is an exiled lawyer, anti-corruption and human rights advocate from the Kyrgyz Republic, who was granted asylum in Austria in 2021. She is a Chairwoman of Freedom for Eurasia, which documents and reports on human rights and corruption abuses in Eurasia (the former Soviet Republics of Eastern Europe and Central Asia).
David Szakonyi is Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, co-Director of PONARS Eurasia, and co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. His academic research focuses on corruption, clientelism, and political economy in Russia, Western Europe and the United States. His most recent book–Politics for Profit:Business, Elections, and Policymaking in Russia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2020)–examines why businesspeople run for political office and how their firms benefit. He has also led numerous investigations into political corruption and opacity in the private equity and real estate industries published in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, the Daily Beast, and the Miami Herald, among other outlets. He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Virginia.
MODERATOR
Sebastien Peyrouse is Director of the Central Asia Program and Research Professor, IERES, The George Washington University. His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, economic and social issues, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India, and South Asia.
