Lucia Kleštincová

Lucia Kleštincová (born 18 July 1985 in Bratislava) is a European policy and digitalisation expert, European Commission official, career coach for women in leadership positions, citizen activist and author.

Kleštincová was born in Bratislava on 18 July 1985.

She spent her childhood in Petržalka, Bratislava, where she attended the first years of primary school and trained in modern gymnastics and synchronised swimming.

During her school years at the Ladislav Novomesky eight-year grammar school, she became interested in public politics and activism.

As a class representative, she launched the school's first waste recycling programmes and organised educational workshops for her classmates, including activating first-time voters before elections.

From 2003, she studied at the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Bratislava.

In 2006, she completed an Erasmus exchange programme at the Faculty of Management at the University of Ghent in Belgium and in 2008 a Leonardo Da Vinci stay in Granada, Spain.

During her studies at university, she gained experience in the field of public administration and diplomacy, for example in the Department of Protocol and International Relations of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, in the Department of Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic or in the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in London.

At the consulting firm Weastra, she was involved in providing strategic advice to companies wishing to establish themselves on the Central European markets.

She then left her post at the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Bratislava due to an offer for further studies.

She graduated in 2008 with the Rector's Award for the best student.

In the 2009/2010 academic year, she studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she received her MSc.

in management in Public Administration.

After graduating in London, she worked as an analyst and consultant at the IT company PosAm from 2010 to 2013, working on e-government support and also leading pro bono projects aimed at connecting universities with labour market needs and introducing graduate employability monitoring in practice.

In 2013, she was recruited by the European institutions following a selection procedure.

In the following ten years, she worked as a policy advisor for the promotion of industrial competitiveness at the European Commission (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs).

She worked on measures to promote the digital single market, the use of technology to modernise industry and public administration.

She worked as an advisor on digitalisation and skills in the Department of Tourism and in the Department of Electronic Public Procurement.

During the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU, she was seconded to the Representation of the Slovak Republic to the European Institutions and worked in the team for proposals in the field of electronic public administration.

Following the Brexit referendum, her role as Senior Management Adviser to the European Commission in the field of competitiveness expanded to include the coordination of preparations for the UK's withdrawal from the EU single market.

As part of activities aimed at bringing a new quality of leadership to the European institutions, she chaired a strategic working group on improving the quality of work with talent, chaired an expert group on the use of data in the public policy-making process and founded several groups to support the personal and professional development of women, including the Club of Slovenian Women in the European Commission.

Following these activities, she was also nominated as a member of Commissioner Helena Dalli's Task Force on Gender Equality and as a representative of the European Commission at G20 level as part of the Empower project on women's empowerment in G20 countries.

In recent years, she has focused on career coaching, specialising in female leadership, burnout prevention and social impact.

She also works as a facilitator, speaker or workshop leader for organisations pursuing similar goals.

In 2016, Kleštincová completed the IT Business Agility programme at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.

She has participated in several project management and leadership courses.

She is particularly interested in promoting female leadership and soft skills as a key to reforming the functioning of organisations and the state.

In the 2019 European Parliament elections, she ran for the Progressive Slovakia - Democrats (Slovakia).

With 20.11% of the vote, the coalition came first in the election.

Lucia received 14,894 preferential votes, moving her from the original tenth place on the coalition's list of candidates to eighth place, but still did not enter the European Parliament.

In March 2023, she became co-chair of the Volt Slovakia party of the pan-European political movement Volt Europa.

In November 2023, Kleštincová was elected the lead candidate for the 2024 European elections.

Lucia Kleštincová is involved in projects to support and modernise education in Slovakia by linking education and practice and supporting women who want to better express their talents and mission in their organisations, rise to leadership positions or get involved in the IT sector.

Lucia Kleštincová regularly lectures on education, the new leadership culture, supporting women and mental health in the workplace, and modernising public administration through a new talent management policy.

She regularly participates in conferences such as Profesia Days or career workshops at schools, where she shares her experience of career planning in Brussels and in European institutions, for example at Profesia Days 2022 Bratislava.

In 2020, she was certified as a coach through the ICF-accredited Executive, Careers and Life Coaching programme at Kingstown College in Dublin.