Simonas Gentvilas

Simonas Gentvilas was born on 28 September 1984 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

He is the son of Eugenijus Gentvilas, who is a former Member of the European Parliament.

He is married and has three children.

His wife’s name is Šarūnė, and they have three children, including a son named Ugnius (born 2015) and a daughter named Guoba (born 2016).

In 2015–2016, he took part in the Swedish Institute Management Programme in Sweden.

He earned a Master’s degree in Urban Studies from the University of Vienna in Austria (completed around 2010).

He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oslo in Norway (completed in 2007).

He pursued his secondary and higher education across six different countries – studying in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, and Spain.

He attended upper secondary school (gymnasium) in Karlskrona, Sweden from 2001 to 2004.

In 2001, he studied at the Vytautas Magnus Gymnasium in Klaipėda, Lithuania (before moving to study in Sweden).

From 2015 to 2016, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Applied Social Sciences in Klaipėda.

In 2015, he was a founder and partner of the Baltic Institute of Technology.

He served as the Executive Director of the Association of Municipalities of Klaipėda Region in 2015.

From 2011 to 2015, he worked as an adviser to the Mayor of Klaipėda City.

Between 2008 and 2011, he was a freelance interpreter and consultant.

In 2007, he briefly worked as a ferry agent for the DFDS shipping company in Fredericia, Denmark.

Simonas Gentvilas has served as a Deputy Chairman of the Liberal Movement of the Republic of Lithuania since 2015.

He has been the Chairman of the Liberal Movement’s Klaipėda city division since 2013.

He was re-elected and continues to serve as a Member of the Seimas in the 2024–2028 term.

He served as a Member of the Seimas during the 2020–2024 parliamentary term.

He served as the Minister of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania from 2020 to 2024.

He was first elected as a Member of the Seimas (Parliament of Lithuania) in the 2016–2020 term.

He was a member of the Klaipėda City Municipal Council from 2015 to 2016.

While on the Klaipėda City Council (2015–2016), he was the head ( seniūnas ) of the Liberal Movement’s faction in that council.

He also chaired the Urban Development and Strategic Planning Committee of Klaipėda City Municipality in 2015–2016.

While on the Klaipėda City Council (2015–2016), he was the head (seniūnas) of the Liberal Movement’s faction in that council.

He became a member of the Liberal Movement party in 2011.

Earlier, from 2005 to 2010, he was a member of several Scandinavian political parties: Sweden’s Folkpartiet, Norway’s Høyre, and Denmark’s Venstre.

In the 13th Seimas (2020–2024), he was a member of the Audit Committee from Nov 2020 to May 2021, and then a member of the Budget and Finance Committee from May 2021 to 2024.

During the 2016–2020 term, he served as Deputy Chair of the Seimas Committee on Environment Protection.

He was re-elected to the Seimas in 2024, again securing a mandate via the Liberal Movement’s multi-member list.

In the 2024 elections, he was ranked 12th on the Liberal Movement’s national list and was re-elected to the Seimas via the multi-member constituency (the party list).

In the 2020 parliamentary elections, he won a seat in the single-member Pajūrio constituency (No. 22).

In the 2020 parliamentary elections, he was listed 8th on the Liberal Movement’s candidate list, but he secured a mandate by winning the single-member Pajūris constituency in the second round (so the list seat passed to the next candidate).

In the 2020 Seimas elections, running in the Pajūris single-member constituency, Gentvilas received 2,710 votes (20.94% of the vote) in the first round. This result allowed him to advance to the runoff, where he ultimately won the seat (defeating his second-round opponent).

In the 2020 parliamentary elections, Gentvilas advanced to the second round in Pajūrio single-member constituency, where he faced Arūnas Barbšys (the TS-LKD candidate). Gentvilas won the runoff, defeating Barbšys and securing the Seimas seat for that constituency.

Simonas Gentvilas was a candidate for Mayor of Klaipėda in the 2019 municipal elections, but he did not win; the incumbent Vytautas Grubliauskas was re-elected as Klaipėda’s mayor.

He was elected to the Seimas in the 2016 elections via the Liberal Movement’s nationwide party list.

In the 2016 parliamentary elections, Gentvilas ran in the Danė single-member constituency (Klaipėda) and advanced to the runoff, but lost to Naglis Puteikis.

In the 2016 Seimas elections, Gentvilas received 1,998 preferential (reitingas) votes on the Liberal Movement’s list. He did not win in the single-member Danė constituency that year, but still entered the Seimas via the party’s list.

In 2022, an LRT investigation found that Gentvilas had not declared that his wife was a major shareholder of the Baltic Institute of Technology, where she works as a consultant.

According to his 2022 asset declaration, he had significant financial changes: that year he reported selling real estate for about €253,449 and declared investments in stocks worth €47,338, while also carrying a personal debt (loan) of €125,888.

In his 2022 asset declaration, Gentvilas reported selling a real estate asset for €253,449 that year and noted that its acquisition cost had been €55,987. He also disclosed investments in three U.S. company stocks (total value ~€47,338) – an investment strategy he said he pursued for a decade specifically to avoid any conflict of interest in Lithuania.

His declared gross income for 2022 (including the property sale) was about €328,585, from which he calculated roughly €43,205 in payable income tax. He further noted that any evaluation of his assets should factor in his €125,888 outstanding loan, implying a significant portion of his wealth was leveraged by debt.

Gentvilas’s father, Eugenijus Gentvilas, is also a politician and has substantial assets – in 2020 Eugenijus (with his spouse) declared a family wealth of about €348,400.

As of 2023, Gentvilas (together with his spouse) declared roughly €440,277 in assets and had about €125,888 in outstanding liabilities. Just a few years earlier, his total declared wealth was under €30,000 – highlighting a steep increase not fully explained by his official earnings (around €50–60k gross annually). This rapid enrichment has drawn scrutiny regarding its sources.

In 2017, Gentvilas (together with his spouse) declared total assets of only about €23,000, whereas by 2022 their declared assets had grown to €244,329. (His 2021 declaration showed ~€226,424, indicating a significant rise in wealth over a few years.)

During his time on the Klaipėda City Council (2015–2016), he served as chairman of the supervisory boards of the public utility AB Klaipėdos energija and the bus company UAB Klaipėdos autobusų parkas.

In 2010, he established an organization called “Lietuvos humanistai” (Lithuanian Humanists).

He also co-founded the Lithuanian youth community in Norway in 2006.

He co-founded the Lithuanian community in Malmö (Sweden) in 2004.

He is a founder of "Mazgas," a startup and entrepreneurs’ community based in Klaipėda.

He founded an orienteering sports school for children in Klaipėda.

He was one of the initiators of the Klaipėda Old Town community organization.

He is a member of the Rotary Club in Klaipėda Old Town.

His wife Šarūnė Gentvilienė is an architect involved in professional organizations – she serves in the leadership of the Lithuanian Architects’ Union and other related bodies.

Gentvilas has family business connections in the tech education sector: together with a family friend (Algirdas Sabaliauskas), his wife is a co-owner of the Baltic Institute of Technology and the related company “Baltic Talents”.

In 2022, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania annulled an order by Gentvilas (as Environment Minister) that would have imposed a double charge on consumers for packaging waste management, ruling that he had exceeded his authority in issuing it.

In 2022, opposition MP Ligita Girskienė alleged that Gentvilas failed to declare a private real estate project: he had purchased a plot of land in Melnragė (a seaside area of Klaipėda) and was building a semi-detached house there without disclosing this in his official declarations, nor the sources of financing (such as loans or gifts) for the construction. The project was reportedly a joint venture with his family friend Algirdas Sabaliauskas (who is also a business partner of Gentvilas’s wife), raising further transparency concerns.

He was embroiled in a controversy involving the paper company Grigeo Klaipėda: in 2019 he proposed a bill that would have allowed the company to avoid investing in wastewater treatment by shifting the costs to the municipal utility (Klaipėdos vandenys), effectively benefiting the company. The bill did not pass, and this initiative came under scrutiny during the 2020 Grigeo pollution scandal.

As a Member of the Seimas, he receives a state salary; by late 2024 an ordinary MP’s monthly pay had risen to roughly €4,000 net (take-home) (it was around €3,000 net per month in earlier years, estimated).

As Environment Minister (2020–2024) he earned roughly €2,500–€3,000 net per month; for example, ministers in 2020 were paid about €2,600 “in hand” per month.

In 2015–2016, he hosted a radio show titled 'Uostamiesčio klubas' (meaning "Port City Club") on the station Ekstra FM.

He is multilingual and can speak seven foreign languages: English, German, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish.