Ingrida Šimonytė facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ingrida Šimonytė MP
Šimonytė in 2019
17th Prime Minister of Lithuania
In office 11 December 2020 – 12 December 2024
President	Gitanas Nausėda
Preceded by	Saulius Skvernelis
Succeeded by	Gintautas Paluckas
Member of the Seimas
Incumbent
Assumed office 14 November 2016
Preceded by	Andrius Kubilius
Constituency	Antakalnis
Deputy Chair of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania
In office 10 July 2013 – 31 October 2016
President	Vitas Vasiliauskas
Preceded by	Darius Petrauskas
Succeeded by	Raimondas Kuodis
Minister of Finance
In office 7 July 2009 – 13 December 2012
Prime Minister	Andrius Kubilius
Preceded by	Algirdas Šemeta
Succeeded by	Rimantas Šadžius
Personal details
Born	(1974-11-15) 15 November 1974 (age 50) Vilnius, Lithuania
Political party	Homeland Union (2022–present) Independent (until 2022)
Alma mater	Vilnius University (BA, MA)
Signature

Ingrida Šimonytė ( born 15 November 1974) is a Lithuanian politician, public servant and economist who served as the 17th prime minister of Lithuania from 2020 to 2024.

In October 2023, Šimonytė announced that she would once again run for president in the 2024 presidential election. She made it to the runoff but lost to Nausėda in a landslide receiving 24% of the vote against Nausėda's 76%.

Early life and education

Šimonytė was born 15 November 1974 in Vilnius to a father who worked as a civil engineer, and a mother, Danutė Šimonienė, who worked as an economist. She moved to the Antakalnis district of Vilnius with her parents in 1984, where she spent most of her childhood and formative years. In 1992, Šimonytė graduated from the Vilnius Žirmūnai Gymnasium, where she was recognised and awarded for her academic skills in mathematics.

After graduating, she enrolled in the Faculty of Economics at Vilnius University, graduating with a degree in business administration in 1996. She subsequently returned to the institution, and received a master's degree in economics in 1998.

Political career

Šimonytė began her career as an economist and public servant, working as chief of the tax division within the Ministry of Finance until 2004. She remained in the tax division until being nominated to serve as finance minister in 2009, tasked with stimulating the Lithuanian economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession. She resigned from the position in 2012, and was appointed deputy chairperson of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, and chairperson of Vilnius University Council, a professor of economics at the Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science, and of public finance at ISM University of Management and Economics.

Šimonytė returned to politics in 2016, when she ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 parliamentary election to represent Antakalnis constituency in Vilnius, ultimately winning a seat in parliament. In 2018, Šimonytė announced her campaign in the 2019 presidential election; she won the nomination of the Homeland Union. She narrowly won the first round of the election on 12 May 2019, before placing second behind fellow independent Gitanas Nausėda in the runoff on 26 May.

She was reelected to Parliament in the 2020 parliamentary election, where the Homeland Union won a plurality of seats. Following the certification of the election results, Šimonytė was proposed as the prime ministerial candidate by a coalition consisting of the Homeland Union, Liberal Movement and Freedom Party; she took office on 11 December, along with the appointment of her cabinet. In October 2023, Šimonytė announced that she would once again run for president in the 2024 presidential election, but lost again to incumbent President Nausėda.

Šimonytė's term as prime minister ended following her party's defeat to the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania in the 2024 Lithuanian parliamentary election in October.

Personal life

In addition to her native Lithuanian, Šimonytė also speaks English, Polish, and Russian, as well as basic-level Swedish. She is unmarried and has no children. The Good Soldier Švejk, a satirical dark comedy by Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, is one of Šimonytė's favorite books, whose characters she has often publicly quoted during her political career.

Honours and awards

Honours

National honours

•  Lithuania: Officer's Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (16 February 2015)

Awards

• „Baltoji banga“ award for 'transparent and accountable activity' (2012)
• Delfi Women of the Year 2019 (Politics) (26 July 2019)
• Delfi Women of the Year 2020 (Politics) (19 August 2020)

Images for kids

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  Šimonytė at the 2010 Baltic Development Forum in Vilnius.

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  Šimonytė and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal visited the Luhansk Oblast on 11 February 2022.

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  Šimonytė meets with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in July 2023

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  Countries visited by Šimonytė as of November 2021

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  Šimonytė in Ukraine, 11 April 2022

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  Ingrida Šimonytė during meeting of prime ministers of Lublin Triangle in Kyiv, 2022

See also

In Spanish: Ingrida Šimonytė para niños