Lolita Čigāne is from Latvia. She has been active in Latvian public life since mid-1990s.

From 1997 to 1999 Lolita worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Riga and Prague as a news analyst and correspondent. Three years later Čigāne started managing civil society projects that resulted in a serious clean-up of Latvian political party, as well as campaign finances and she did it until 2007.

Lolita headed the Latvian chapter of Transparency International from 2008 to 2010. Further to this, in 2010, she was elected as a member of parliament and served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Finance (2013-2014) as well as chair of the European Affairs committee from 2014 to 2018.

Not only being active in domestic civil society initiatives and projects, but also having worked with various International Organisations (such as OSCE, CoE PACE, OSI, IFES), Ms. Čigāne is now a board member of European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Lolita‘s interests include current and historical developments in former Communist regions, politics and policies of the European Union, good governance, elections, and election campaigns. Likewise, she is a frequent commentator of political affairs in the Latvian media and also a visiting professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law and Riga Stockholm School of Economics.

A famous Latvian activist holds MA in International Relations and European Affairs from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary and MSc in International Political Economy from London School of Economics, the UK.