Leonard Benardo

Leonard Benardo has been at the Open Society Foundations since 1996. In that capacity he has overseen the Foundations' activities in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, and Hungary. In addition to directing the Open Society Fellowship, he currently oversees all Open Society grantmaking in Russia and works closely with the Central European University in the development of its new School of Public Policy and International Affairs.

Prior to his work in New York, Benardo worked in the Moscow office of the Foundations. He has also taught history and Spanish in a NYC public high school. Benardo has written for the New York Times, New York Review of Books, and International Herald Tribune, and is the co-author of Brooklyn by Name: How the Neighborhoods, Streets, Parks, Bridges, and More Got Their Names (NYU Press, 2006) and Citizen-in-Chief: The Second Lives of the American Presidents (Harper, 2010).