Leonid Nevzlin

Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin (born September 21, 1959) is a Russian-Israeli businessman, investor, and philanthropist who rose to prominence as a senior executive and shareholder in the Yukos oil company during Russia's 1990s privatization era. After serving as vice president of Yukos from 1996 and first vice chairman from 1998, Nevzlin relocated to Israel in 2003 following the arrest of Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and amid Russian investigations into alleged economic crimes including fraud and embezzlement. Russian courts later convicted him in absentia, imposing a life sentence for purportedly organizing murders, though these proceedings have been widely criticized as politically motivated retribution against Yukos principals who challenged the Kremlin. Since gaining Israeli citizenship, Nevzlin has directed his efforts toward philanthropy, founding the Nadav Foundation in 2005 to advance Jewish education, cultural preservation, and health initiatives, including the establishment of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and support for the Museum of the Jewish People. He remains an outspoken critic of the Russian government, having renounced his Russian citizenship, while facing recent allegations from anti-corruption activists of involvement in assaults on opposition figures, claims that have prompted calls for independent investigation.

Leonid Nevzlin was born in 1959 in Moscow into a Jewish family of modest means. His father, an engineer from Leningrad Oblast, and his mother, a schoolteacher originally from Chita, raised him in the Soviet capital on their combined incomes from state employment.

Leonid Nevzlin was born on September 21, 1959, in Moscow to a Jewish family of modest means during the Soviet era. His father, an engineer from Leningrad Oblast, and his mother, a schoolteacher from Chita, raised him in a household that openly acknowledged its Jewish heritage, which was uncommon at the time.

Nevzlin's first marriage was to Anna Shlepper, an engineer, with whom he had a daughter, Irina Nevzlin, born in 1978. Irina, who grew up primarily with her mother after her parents' divorce, has emerged as a key figure in Israeli Jewish philanthropy, including as a founder of the Nevzlin Family Foundation alongside her father and as former chair of Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People. She divorced her first husband, Michael Kogan, in 2015 and married Yuli Edelstein, a former refusenik and Knesset Speaker, in 2016; the couple has two sons.