Marianna Leontiev is an internal PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law at Trnava University, where her research focuses on the concept of public interest within the Slovak whistleblowing framework. She has played an active role in shaping whistleblower protection in Slovakia, having served as a member of the Government Office working group that drafted the 2019 Whistleblower Protection Act and formally established the Whistleblower Protection Office. She also served on the selection committee responsible for appointing the Office’s  first director. Marianna is a country editor at Whistleblowing Monitor, where she reports on developments in whistleblowing legislation in Slovakia.

From 2015 to 2023, she worked as a lawyer and policymaker at the Stop Corruption Foundation, where she significantly contributed to anti-corruption policy and public legal education in the field of whistleblowing. In her legal practice, she specializes in labour law and whistleblower protection. In a recent publication, she addressed ongoing challenges related to the protection of police whistleblowers in Slovakia, the legal status and establishment of the Whistleblower Protection Office, and provided comparative analyses of whistleblowing frameworks across EU member states. Marianna also serves as a lay judge at the Supreme Administrative Court and is a member of the State Commission for Elections and Control of Political Party Financing.