Dena opened the company's Kazakhstan office in Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) in 2016, and became General Director of IHS Markit (Now part of S&P Global) Kazakhstan in 2021. A passionate Eurasianist, Dena focuses on oil, gas and refined product production and trade in Central Asian markets, particularly Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. She has worked on several projects in the region, including the Kazenergy National Energy Report in 2017, 2019 and 2021. Prior to joining S&P Global, Dena was a Fulbright scholar in Almaty, Kazakhstan, an Alfa Fellow in Moscow, Russia, and a two-time recipient of the US State Department Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for Russian language study.

Dena holds a Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude, and a Master of Arts in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She speaks fluent Russian and conversational Kazakh.