Elena Leontjeva is co-founder and President of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI). She holds degrees in economics, mathematics, and programming from Vilnius University. After co-founding the Lithuanian Free Market Institute in 1990, Elena Leontjeva served as the organization’s president from 1993 until 2001. She assumed the role of president again in 2020.

Under her leadership, LFMI stood at the forefront of Lithuania’s post-Soviet transition and helped to institutionalize free-market principles. Elena Leontjeva played a key role in building the legal and institutional foundations for Lithuania’s economy, including the Currency Board and the Litas Credibility Law, the securities market, banking, tax and budget reforms, private pension insurance, downsizing state functions, and deregulation known as the Sunset and Sunrise initiatives. In 1995, Elena and her team designed the distributed profit tax model, which is today widely known as the Estonian profit tax.

She served as a senior economic advisor to President Valdas Adamkus and as a state counselor on economic reform issues across six administrations. Since 2020, she has been a member of the Board of Trustees at Vilnius University Foundation.

Elena published a novel, The Market Square, or the Story of Two Joannes, which reflects the philosophy of the market, money, and liberty.

Her search has led her to pioneer a multidisciplinary research on scarcity and lack, incorporating philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics. Based on this research, she co-edited a peer-reviewed publication, “The Phenomenon of Lack: Being, Man and Community,” and co-created a 2019 documentary, “Sublime Thirst”.

Awards

Elena Leontjeva was named among the ten personalities who have changed Lithuania by the magazine Veidas.

In 2022, she was chosen as the winner of the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award for her lifetime of service to the liberty movement, especially to the people of Lithuania.

In 2024, she received an honorary causa doctorate from Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM).