The bio book for the event, hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI)\u2014an acclaimed think tank affiliated with the United Nations that works to settle and prevent armed conflicts and was then run by one of the key architects of the Oslo Accords\u2014was a who\u2019s who of health experts and policymakers. Scheduled attendees and speakers included the director-general of the World Health Organization, president of the Institute of Medicine, the president of the National Academy of Medicine, an associate director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a senior executive from the Gates Foundation (the philanthropic institution that, at the time, made up some 20% of IPI\u2019s contributions).<\/p>\n
Among the attendees that gathered that morning in the Palais des Nations for the discussions was Svetlana Pozhidaeva, who, by her own admission, had no expertise in epidemiology or foreign aid. Pozhidaeva, a former Russian model who was then 31, had been a so-called \u201cassistant\u201d to Jeffrey Epstein for about five years. She had shown up to the event wearing a dress Epstein had bought her in Paris and instructed her to wear.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Fortune<\/em>, Pozhidaeva said Epstein had told her she would be working closely with both the International Peace Institute and the Gates Foundation to orchestrate the whole event. \u201cI will be in the middle of it, helping coordinate the whole project\u2014that\u2019s how he positioned it to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On paper, that seemed true. Terje R\u00f8d-Larsen, who was then CEO of IPI, would go on to sign a personal recommendation letter for Pozhidaeva\u2019s visa application, a copy of which emerged in the Epstein files earlier this year, stating that she held an \u201cactive and lead role\u201d coordinating follow-up meetings for the event and that, \u201cwithout her extraordinary efforts, the fundraising would not have reached the levels it reached.\u201d<\/p>\n Pozhidaeva, however, said she was held at arm\u2019s length from the planning and never given anything to do. She said she went with Epstein to visit the Gates Foundation around that same period, but wasn\u2019t allowed in the meeting. At the pandemics conference, Pozhidaeva recalled feeling like a fifth wheel, with attendees asking what she was doing there.<\/p>\n In hindsight, Pozhidaeva now sees the IPI job Epstein touted to her as \u201cone of the hooks he used to keep me around\u201d\u2014yet another promise of a career opportunity she could only obtain through him that ultimately never materialized.<\/p>\n Pozhidaeva\u2019s experience was part of a larger pattern.\u00a0<\/p>\n Epstein introduced IPI to the Gates Foundation in 2013, closely advising IPI employees on what to say and how to obtain the initial $5 million donation to IPI, and working behind the scenes with an adviser to then-Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to stimulate interest and speed up the process.\u00a0 The Gates Foundation would become an extraordinarily significant donor relationship for the next three years, with IRS records showing that donations from the Gates Foundation made up more than 20% of IPI\u2019s annual donations between 2013 and 2015. Epstein would also be involved in gifts totaling $950,000 from private equity titan Leon Black to IPI. In return, Epstein used the leverage he garnered with IPI\u2019s leadership to offer jobs or secure U.S. visa recommendation letters for at least four women in his orbit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Emails released by the Department of Justice earlier this year, alongside Pozhidaeva and another assistant\u2019s personal accounts, show how Epstein used and leveraged the brands of a respected think tank and one of the most important philanthropic institutions in the world as instruments to control and traffick women\u2014all while he was already known to be a registered sex offender. Except where otherwise noted, mentions of emails, text messages, and documents refer to items released publicly by the DOJ.<\/p>\n After his 2008 conviction for soliciting an underage woman for prostitution, Epstein began recruiting young-looking foreign women over the age of 18 who were abroad or already within the U.S. on the promise of jobs, education, and career opportunities\u2014a pattern documented by women\u2019s personal accounts and several lawsuits in the years since Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell. Often referring to them as his \u201cassistants,\u201d Epstein helped them obtain visas and pay for their accommodation, clothing, and education\u2014later demanding gratitude and obedience to his commands, and conveying that they owed him for his generosity. Sometimes he would pay for or demand that they recruit other women. Many of these assistants were from Russia or Eastern Europe\u2014some of them poor and still learning English\u2014and they became dependent on Epstein for visas, housing, and money. Several of the assistants, including Pozhidaeva and another who shared her personal account with Fortune<\/em>, say they were repeatedly sexually abused by Epstein during the course of their time in his orbit.<\/p>\n Epstein\u2019s regular engagement with politicians and tech executives\u2014and his affiliation with prominent institutions like the International Peace Institute or the Gates Foundation legitimized Epstein, according to Pozhidaeva, and made her hesitant to question whether the career opportunities he was offering were real or not.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to meet tech executives or prime ministers when you come from a small country or from Russia or Ukraine\u2014it changes your perspective,\u201d she says. \u201cIf someone like this comes to [Epstein\u2019s] house, maybe it\u2019s me who doesn\u2019t understand something here.\u201d<\/p>\n Another former assistant, who Fortune<\/em> is referring to as Marna in an effort to protect her identity from becoming known, told Fortune<\/em> in an interview that Epstein\u2019s proximity to important people\u2014and witnessing him leverage those relationships as if they owed him something\u2014made the threats he made, or the stories he told, all feel equally true.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cFor a foreign woman in her early 20s with limited English, that framing was extremely powerful,\u201d she said. \u201cIt made him seem untouchable.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to comment for this story, an IPI spokesperson said in a statement that the think tank \u201ccontinues to be very troubled by the documents released recently by the US Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein\u201d and that it \u201cjoins with those around the world who have expressed solidarity with the survivors of Epstein\u2019s wrongdoings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIPI is aware of the connection that once existed between Epstein and IPI\u2019s former President Terje R\u00f8d-Larsen, a connection IPI acknowledged in 2020 when it announced Mr. Larsen\u2019s resignation. IPI no longer has contact with Mr. Larsen or his executive staff,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n The Gates Foundation said in a statement that \u201cthe harm Epstein inflicted on women and girls was horrific, and no one should ever have to experience what they did. It\u2019s deeply troubling that, without our knowledge, Epstein used the Gates Foundation\u2019s name to further his agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n There has been no evidence suggesting that R\u00f8d-Larsen was personally involved in abusing any women himself, nor that he was aware that Epstein was abusing the women he helped procure jobs and visas for. The law firm representing R\u00f8d-Larsen pointed Fortune<\/em> to statements it has issued in recent weeks on R\u00f8d-Larsen\u2019s behalf, including from his lawyer John Christian Elden, who said earlier this year that R\u00f8d-Larsen has \u201cpreviously expressed regret for his association with Epstein and has clearly distanced himself from Epstein\u2019s actions. He has expressed deep sympathy for those affected, and acknowledges that in hindsight he should have exercised greater caution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A representative for Black did not respond to Fortune<\/em>\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n It was Jeffrey Epstein who first introduced the Gates Foundation and IPI. Epstein, via his friendship with its president, R\u00f8d-Larsen, had already been tied to IPI for a few years. By 2011, R\u00f8d-Larsen was visiting Epstein\u2019s house in New York City and had stayed in his home in Paris, and visited his island. In 2013, he personally borrowed $130,000 from Epstein, as was first reported by the investigative outlet DN and later confirmed in DOJ emails.\u00a0<\/p>\n Emails released earlier this year by the Department of Justice show the extent to which the relationship was professionally intertwined, too.\u00a0 R\u00f8d-Larsen regularly turned to Epstein for fundraising advice and sent him private IPI documents or exchanges to review. Several other IPI employees, including the director of its Vienna office, corresponded with Epstein via email. Epstein sponsored a fellowship with IPI in 2012, and an email shows that IPI was trying to arrange payment to Epstein for serving on IPI\u2019s Mongolia Presidential Advisory Board, where Epstein and a group of others gave direct advice to the then-Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t see a way out for myself\u201d<\/p>\n Svetlana Pozhidaeva, former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n By the time that Epstein introduced Bill Gates to IPI\u2019s senior leadership in March 2013\u2014around the time of a meeting at the residence of then-Nobel Committee chair Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland\u2014Epstein had already been working behind the scenes to secure the donation.\u00a0<\/p>\n He had been corresponding with Boris Nikolic, Bill Gates\u2019 then advisor and someone who regularly interfaced with Epstein, about IPI\u2014sending him information about the Institute and its work to eradicate polio for Nikolic to relay to Gates at the end of 2012, emails show. Over the next several months, Epstein would work meticulously\u2014reviewing and editing emails to Gates Foundation employees and pushing Nikolic about the donation.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement to Fortune,<\/em> a spokesperson for Nikolic said: \u201cAs the emails show, discussions between IPI and the Foundation focused on expanding polio vaccine access in underserved regions,\u201d declining to comment further.<\/p>\n \u201cBill approved the 5 million,\u201d Epstein wrote to the head of IPI\u2019s Vienna office when giving her advice about an upcoming conversation with the Foundation. \u201cAsk them if they read your analuysis [sic] of the situation,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Epstein\u2019s efforts were fruitful. In 2013, the Gates Foundation committed $5 million to IPI to support polio eradication, and Epstein himself emailed Nikolic the wiring instructions for the money.\u00a0<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t stop there. Over the next seven years, between 2013 and 2020, the Gates Foundation donated more than $8.5 million to IPI, public records from the foundation show.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stefan Jerrevang\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n At the onset, emails released by the Department of Justice show that Nikolic was trying to speed up the grant-making process, which he said in an email typically took six to nine months. \u201cWe are trying to accelerate,\u201d he wrote in an email to Epstein and the head of IPI\u2019s Vienna office in August 2013. Within one month of that email, several IPI staffers flew out to Seattle to meet with the Gates Foundation, and in October, the $5 million grant was awarded, and $2.5 million was wired to IPI.<\/p>\n At least one of the employees of the Gates Foundation was surprised by the speed with which the Foundation moved forward with IPI. A former employee at the Foundation at the time, who worked on the organization\u2019s polio eradication strategy, recalls running into someone from IPI approximately a month after they first heard about the talks, and was surprised to learn that person was already laying the groundwork for it. \u201cI thought it was rather quick for a higher level grant.\u201d<\/p>\n What employees at the Foundation did not know is that Epstein had been using multiple channels and personal connections over several years to try to influence Bill Gates, as Fortune<\/em> has detailed in earlier reporting.<\/p>\n Epstein would get involved lining up another donor to IPI, too. In 2014, the private equity scion Leon Black made two personal donations, totally $950,000, to the think tank\u2014donations Epstein was corresponding and asking about, emails show.\u00a0<\/p>\n As it turns out, there would be some favors Epstein would want from IPI in return for his generosity.<\/p>\n In August 2018, Marna, the foreign assistant in her early 20s at the time, texted Epstein that she had heard back from the Swiss Embassy in Washington as she was trying to secure her student visa. Her papers had not been approved.<\/p>\n Within 15 minutes, Epstein had messaged R\u00f8d-Larsen, who had previously agreed to help with the visa. R\u00f8d-Larsen responded to Epstein within a few minutes, saying he would reach out to an ambassador and \u201cask him to speak to the Consul General.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Soon after, Epstein and R\u00f8d-Larsen had apparently come up with a solution. Epstein texted Marna: \u201cYou have been working for international peace institute terje larson,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Marna, seemingly confused, asked if the message was meant for her.<\/p>\n \u201cyes if you get a calll [sic]; thats the story you need to tell,\u201d he instructed.<\/p>\n Other women, however, had more direct connections to IPI. While an exact tally of women in Epstein\u2019s orbit who worked for IPI could not be learned, Fortune<\/em> confirmed two of Epstein\u2019s assistants, including Pozhidaeva, held roles on staff at IPI, and additional email exchanges reviewed by Fortune<\/em> show that Epstein either floated IPI as a potential career opportunity or a means to secure a visa application for at least two more.<\/p>\n \u201cEpstein would find something each of us wanted, something appealing, and use it as leverage\u201d <\/p>\n Marna, former assistant to Jeffrey Epstein<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Epstein\u2019s numerous attempts to leverage the connections he had secured for R\u00f8d-Larsen\u2019s organization would ultimately capture the attention of authorities.<\/p>\n In December 2019, a liaison prosecutor from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a memo to the U.S. Department of Justice, according to an email exchange within the files. This was several months after Epstein had died by suicide in New York after being arrested by the Department of Justice. The memo included testimony from an IPI employee, saying that the individual had been \u201casked on more than one occasion to attend to very short-term trainees from Eastern Europe\u201d during their time working at IPI between 2014 to 2016.<\/p>\n \u201cThese trainees were all young, beautiful females, and without the education required to work at the think tank,\u201d the memo read, adding that some of the women took pictures at the UN that were later sent to Epstein.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll incorporate it into our investigation and\/or follow up as appropriate,\u201d the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of New York wrote in response to receiving the information from a Department of Justice liaison prosecutor who passed it along.<\/p>\n In a January 2014 exchange with a woman, whose name is redacted in the records apart from her initial, \u201cM,\u201d Epstein offered up work at IPI as one of his \u201cmany ideas\u201d he had for her.<\/p>\n \u201cAlso peace institute in vienna sounds like a great idea,\u201d M responded to Epstein. \u201cPlease tell me more details? I still receive options from my booker but modeling is not my goal anymore. Thank you for great offers and aid.\u201d<\/p>\n Theo Wargo\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Pozhidaeva had a degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and had been modeling for a European fashion brand before meeting Epstein, who had helped her secure a U.S. visa and secure her housing, as the Wall Street Journal<\/em> first reported. Pozhidaeva would work at IPI on and off between around 2012 and 2016, she recalls. Emails she shared with Fortune<\/em> show notes she took from a meeting she sat in with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, as well as her attending a trip to Kazakhstan. Pozhidaeva was also included in logistical correspondence regarding a trip that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers took on behalf of IPI. \u201cI felt like I was so out of place,\u201d she told Fortune<\/em> about her time attending the pandemics conference. \u201cPeople were making comments that I looked very young.\u201d<\/p>\n A separate Russian model and Epstein assistant named Ada, who\u2019s real name Fortune<\/em> is withholding in an effort to protect her privacy, also got a job as a result of the Epstein-IPI connection. She worked at IPI as an intern, a full-time employee in a newly created \u201cexternal relations assistant\u201d position, then a volunteer (due to her visa status) for more than two years, according to one of the woman\u2019s offer letters of employment as well as an email to R\u00f8d-Larsen from an IPI employee that outlined the woman\u2019s role and how much she had cost IPI during her time at the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cTotal expense to IPI between October 2016 and July 2018 was an estimated $71,000,\u201d the employee wrote to R\u00f8d-Larsen in February 2019.<\/p>\n Epstein confirmed in an email exchange with Ada that he was bankrolling Ada\u2019s salary at IPI himself.<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t you give them 100k for my full-time employment?\u201d Ada asked Epstein in January 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou are right,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n During her time at IPI, Ada gave Epstein updates about her work at the think tank, and alerted him when she had co-published an article about water conservancy on IPI\u2019s site.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy first piece on water published!\u201d Ada enthusiastically emailed to Epstein in April of that year. She would go on to co-byline another Q&A as well.<\/p>\n In one exchange, Epstein even floated a job directly at the Gates Foundation. \u201cYou could IPI proved to be a particularly alluring opportunity to some of his assistants, due to its affiliation with high-profile institutions like the United Nations and the Gates Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose are some of the most respected international organizations in the philanthropic world,\u201d Pozhidaeva says. Pozhidaeva shared an email with Fortune<\/em> that she had sent in 2012 to her mother, who was still in Russia, where she excitedly told her that Epstein had relayed that conversations with IPI seemed to be moving forward.<\/p>\n Epstein dangled opportunities to perpetuate sexual abuse and recruit more women into the fold, the former assistant Marna explains. \u201cEpstein would find something each of us wanted, something appealing, and use it as leverage. Sometimes he would actually deliver: an internship at IPI\u2026 or a semester or a course at a good school. And whenever he did this for someone, he made sure to brag about it to everyone else,\u201d she said. \u201cHe would then use the promise of providing something similar\u2014the mirage of it\u2014to continue the abuse, to keep the women tethered to him, and to pressure them into recruiting others.\u201d<\/p>\n That such established institutions could end up so intertwined with a sex offender is now puzzling insiders, who were never aware the organization they worked for had any ties to Epstein until earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t a clue about Epstein,\u201d says the former employee at the Gates Foundation, who says they were shocked to learn that Epstein had been involved in the IPI grant and had corresponded with Gates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since the latest batch of the Epstein files, Bill Gates issued an apology to Foundation staff during a town hall in February over his personal correspondence and interactions with Epstein and the reputational risk it has posed on the Foundation\u2019s work, as was first reported by the Wall Street Journal<\/em>. In March, the Foundation commissioned an external review ?to assess?its past \u201cengagement with Epstein\u201d and to review its current policies for vetting and developing new philanthropic partnerships. \u201cThat review is underway, and we expect?the board and management will receive an update?this?summer,\u201d the Foundation wrote in a statement that was published in April.<\/p>\n R\u00f8d-Larsen resigned as president and CEO of IPI in 2020 the same month that information of his ties to Epstein was first reported by the investigative outlet DN. In the weeks since the latest release of DOJ documents from the Epstein files, R\u00f8d-Larsen\u2019s wife, Mona Juul, resigned as Norway\u2019s Ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, and Norwegian authorities have opened corruption investigations into the two of them. In statements, both individuals have denied the charges. Their son, Edward Juul R\u00f8d-Larsen, whom Epstein had mentored and left $5 million to in his will, died by suicide in April. He was 25.<\/p>\n The lawyer representing R\u00f8d-Larsen, John Christian Elden, said in a statement earlier this year that R\u00f8d-Larsen is \u201ccurrently seriously ill\u201d and \u201chas recently suffered multiple strokes and is significantly cognitively impaired.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis causes major difficulties for him in expressing himself both in writing and orally, and it also complicates the legal team\u2019s work in establishing the facts,\u201d Elden wrote. \u201cI ask for calm and human consideration towards R\u00f8d?Larsen and his family at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n At IPI, there has been a reckoning over its ties to Epstein for several years now. After R\u00f8d-Larsen\u2019s resignation, the subsequent acting chief executive of the Institute moved swiftly to address financial ties to Epstein that had begun to surface. The board commissioned an internal forensic audit, and made those results public.<\/p>\n But that audit focused squarely on the financial trail between Epstein and the think tank. It never mentioned that it was Epstein himself who had brokered one of the Institute\u2019s most important grantor relationships, and IPI said that its review found \u201cno evidence of Epstein deriving any personal benefit from IPI in exchange for his donations.\u201d It didn\u2019t acknowledge that R\u00f8d-Larsen had helped secure visas for women in Epstein\u2019s orbit, nor that Epstein had placed women who worked for him directly on the IPI payroll and at some of its events or trips.\u00a0<\/p>\n For those women, such as Pozhidaeva, details of their presence at IPI are only just coming to light.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pozhidaeva says she has since forgiven R\u00f8d-Larsen for his role. She went on to cofound a venture capital fundraising platform and says she is proud of her current career. But she says that the IPI job, while impressive on paper, didn\u2019t help her in that effort; it was primarily used by Epstein to entice her to stay put. Despite Epstein\u2019s promises, Pozhidaeva obtained no real experience, work, or connections to start a meaningful career, she says. Indeed, the gaps in her resume seemed to widen the longer she stayed with him, and she felt trapped.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t see a way out for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Jeffrey #Epstein #leveraged #U.N.affiliated #nonprofitand #Gates #Foundationto #control #women<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On September 12, 2015, more than three dozen health experts and diplomats assembled at the Palais des Nations, the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, for a day-long conference on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1371,2222,4150,4149,4146,2221,2216,2778,4148,4147,167],"class_list":["post-2334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-control","tag-epstein","tag-foundationto","tag-gates","tag-gates-foundation","tag-jeffrey","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-leveraged","tag-nonprofitand","tag-u-n-affiliated","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Bill approved the 5 million\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/div>\u2018That\u2019s the story you need to tell\u2019\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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![\"Terje](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-849697732-e1778275434701.jpg?format=webp&w=1440&q=100\"\/)
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work for the human rights comminsion [sic] in strausberg, gatees foundation [sic] in ivory coast. etc,\u201d he wrote in an email in January 2014 about a potential summer internship.<\/p>\n\u2018I hadn\u2019t a clue\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n