Ksenia Leonova is a journalist, writing for independent non-governmental Russian mass-media publications. She is one of the lucky 20 percent of Moscow residents born in the city. She graduated from the Russian Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She was the youngest financial reporter in the history of Russian Forbes magazine, with a special focus on financial pyramids. On the wave of the pre-election anti-government spirit in 2011, she left her career as a financial reporter to involve herself in social journalism and investigate the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, judges involved in the Pussy Riot trial, and infringements on parliamentary elections. She collaborates with publications such as Esquire, Opendemocracy, Openspace, Colta, Kommersant, and Afisha. Due to governmental pressure on Russian media, in particular on entrepreneurs financing independent sociopolitical media, Ksenia returned to financial journalism. She is currently working for the largest business newspaper in the country, Kommersant, writing about the stock market, while hoping to return to social journalism.