Russian activist Yelena Panfilova was elected deputy chair of the global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International on Sunday, the organization said on its website.
Peruvian lawyer Jose Ugaz, best known for investigating the crimes of the now-jailed president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, became the new chair of the organization.
Panfilova, 46, founded Transparency International's Russian bureau in 2000 and remained its only chief until giving the job to Anton Pominov last summer.
The Moscow-born Panfilova has a Ph.D. in political studies and also teaches at the prestigious Higher School of Economics in the Russian capital.
She previously sat on the Kremlin's human rights council, an outspoken advisory body, but quit in 2012 along with several other prominent rights activists.
She did not give a clear reason for her decision at the time, but other council members who stepped down attributed their decision to what they described as the Kremlin's growing distrust of civil society.
Russia came in 127th out of 177 countries in Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index, published last year.
Transparency International, founded in 1993 and headquartered in Berlin, has branches in more than 100 countries.
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