Anya Verkhovskaya - Biography

Anya Verkhovskaya (aka Anya Verkhovskaya-Cohen) is a Moscow-born (circa 1969) consultant, chief operating officer, film producer, and activist.

Background

Verkhovskaya fled the former Soviet Union as a teenage political refugee when she was 19-years-old.

From 1994 through 2001, Verkhovskaya worked with filmmaker Steven Spielberg, heading his eastern European and middle Asian operations of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (currently USC Shoah Foundation Institute). s an expert on community outreach in eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, creating an outreach community network in more than 20 countries.

The life stories of more than 9,000 Jewish, Romani, and other Holocaust survivors and witnesses were videotaped as a result of Verkhovskaya's work.

Career

Consultant

Her work with Spielberg assisted her in creating a comprehensive method of reaching out to Holocaust victims and their families for the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation and the German Forced Labour Compensation Programme. Verkhovskaya was also a consultant to the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) on outreach strategies, and she supervised the notification of claimants and face-to-face assistance programs in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

From 1999 through 2001, Verkhovskaya served as a consultant for A.B. Data, Ltd., to provide notice of the Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Banks), a $1.25 billion class action settlement, to potential class members. Her efforts resulted in the notification of more than two million people, including Jews and Romanies throughout 109 countries, and translating settlements in 80 different languages.

Business

In 2001, Verkhovskaya joined A.B. Data, Ltd., and is currently the senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of its class action administration company, where she oversees class action administration and notice implementation in the United States and abroad. She has provided expert testimony and affidavits concerning class action notice manageability and adequacy, class certification, settlement, and fund distribution issues in a variety of class action litigation areas, including: securities fraud, ERISA, consumer, insurance, employment, civil and human rights, environmental, and antitrust.

Verkhovskaya is the only female chief operating officer in the industry and has been named a finalist in 2009 in both the Best Executive—Service Businesses category for The Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Best Executive of the Year—Services category for The American Business Awards.

Film production

The Last Days

Verkhovskaya was the field producer and the production manager in The Last Days, a documentary feature receiving an Oscar nomination in 1998 and an Oscar win at the 1999 Academy Awards in the 'Best Documentary Feature' category, and which was nominated for an Eddie Award for 'Best Edited Documentary Film' at the American Cinema Editors Awards.

The film tells the stories of five Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, focussing on the horrors of life in the concentration camps, but also stressing the optimism and desire to survive of the survivors themselves. Steven Spielberg served as executive producer.

Children From the Abyss

Verkhovskaya co-produced Children from the Abyss (2001), a documentary that won the 54th Annual Christopher Award in the Television & Cable category.

In Children from the Abyss, part of Broken Silence (2002), a five-documentary series produced by Steven Spielberg, Russian Holocaust survivors detail their experience of resistance, betrayal, collaborators, rescuers, bystanders, and the desire for revenge.

Activism

Verkhovskaya has served on the Advisory Committee for New Émigrés in New York City and is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Archive: Institute of Russian Jewish American Diaspora, New York City, Sir Martin Gilbert, Honorary Chair, a nonprofit organization founded to preserve the history and collective memory of the Jewish immigrant community from the former Soviet Union.

Family

Verkhovskaya got married while in Bulgaria working for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. She gave birth to a son in 1999.

Patents

• Patent Title: Reverse Printed Book

Recognition

Awards & nominations

• 2009, Stevie Awards finalist, 'Women in Business'
• 2009, Stevie Awards finalist, 'Best Executive of the Year'

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