Natalya Timakova

Born at Alma Ata in the Kazakh SSR, Timakova graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University in 1998.

Timakova began working as a journalist in 1995 whilst studying at Moscow State, where she was a political journalist for Moskovsky Komsomolets. In 1996 Timakova was part of the Presidential pool of journalists and she covered the election campaign of first Russian President Boris Yeltsin for the 1996 presidential election. In 1997 Timakova was a reporter and then senior political correspondent at Kommersant, and worked for the publishing house until 1999. In 1999, Timakova was the political correspondent for Interfax.

In 1999, Timakova was appointed as Deputy Head of the Government Information Department of the Russian government, until she was appointed in 2000 as the Deputy Head of the Presidential Press and Information Office, and from 2001 as First Deputy Head of the same office. On 4 November 2002, she was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as First Deputy Press Attache for the President and Head of the Presidential Press and Information Office.

On 13 May 2008, Timakova was appointed by new President Dmitry Medvedev to the post of Press Attaché to the Russian President. Timakova was a core member of Medvedev's presidential administration, and she was deemed by the Agency for Political and Economic Communications in 2011 to be the 44th most powerful figure, and to be the third most powerful female, in Russian politics, after Tatyana Golikova and Elvira Nabiullina.

In 22 May 2012 she was appointed as the Spokesman of the Prime Minister.

On 29 January 2009, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity signed an ukaz conferring on Timakova the Order of Friendship for "assistance in objective reporting of the events around South Ossetia in 2008".