Simonas Kairys

Kairys’s wife, Deimantė Kairienė (née Liubinaitė), works as a project manager at the real estate development firm UAB "Nuova Capital."

He married public relations specialist Deimantė Liubinaitė on 12 April 2018; later that year they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Amelija.

Simonas Kairys was born on 19 April 1984 in Telšiai, Lithuania.

He is married.

He is originally from the Samogitia region and has lived in Kaunas since finishing school.

In 2011, he obtained a Master’s degree in Law from Mykolas Romeris University.

In 2007, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Vytautas Magnus University (VDU).

He was an advisor to the Mayor of Kaunas City in 2019–2020.

After the 2019 mayoral election, re-elected Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijošaitis invited Kairys to work as his advisor.

He worked as a Network Manager at the state-owned company AB Lietuvos paštas (Lithuanian Post) from 2011 to 2015.

From 2007 to 2011 he worked as a Project Manager at the Liberaliosios minties institutas (Institute of Liberal Thought).

He served as an assistant to the Deputy Mayor of Kaunas City Municipality from 2007 to 2011.

He was put forward by party branches as a candidate for the Liberal Movement’s chairmanship in 2025, but in September 2025 he withdrew from the leadership race, citing the changing political situation and endorsing Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen’s continued leadership of the party.

He became a member of the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) on 14 November 2024.

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

Kairys led the Liberal Movement’s Kaunas city branch and resigned as its chairman in 2019 after an unsuccessful election outcome.

He served as Deputy Mayor of Kaunas City Municipality from 2015 to 2019.

He was a member of the Kaunas City Municipal Council from 2011 to 2015.

Since 2006, he has been a member of the Liberals Movement (Liberalų sąjūdis) party.

Earlier, he was a member of the Liberal and Centre Union in 2005–2006, before joining Liberalų sąjūdis.

He is one of the Deputy Chairpersons of the Liberal Movement party (a vice-chair to the party’s leader).

He is also a member of the Liberal Movement’s national Board (Valdyba).

He serves on the Seimas Commission for Energy and Sustainable Development, starting 4 December 2024.

In the Seimas (2024–2028 term), he serves as a member of the Committee for the Future (since 19 November 2024).

He is also a member of the Seimas Committee on Education and Science (appointed 19 November 2024).

In the 2024 parliamentary election, Kairys won a Seimas seat by defeating Homeland Union (TS-LKD) leader Gabrielius Landsbergis in the runoff for the Centro–Žaliakalnio single-member constituency.

In the October 27, 2024 runoff, Kairys unseated TS-LKD leader Gabrielius Landsbergis in the Centro–Žaliakalnio constituency by a decisive margin – winning about 58.2% of the vote (9,054 votes) to Landsbergis’s 41.8% (6,510 votes).

In the 2024 parliamentary elections, he was elected to the Seimas in the Centro–Žaliakalnio single-member constituency (No. 20) representing the Liberal Movement.

In the October 2020 Seimas elections, Kairys had risen to a top-ten position on the Liberal Movement’s candidate list, though the party’s performance was not strong enough for him to secure a parliamentary seat that year.

He was the Liberal Movement’s official candidate for Mayor of Kaunas in the 2019 municipal elections.

In the 2019 Kaunas mayoral race, he finished third, receiving only about 2.4% of the vote.

He led the Liberal Movement’s list in the 2019 Kaunas council elections, but the list did not win any council seats.

He ran for the Seimas in 2012 and 2016 without winning a seat (he was 32nd on the party list in 2012 and 12th in 2016).

By the end of 2023, Kairys and his wife had about €206,000 in declared assets (including an apartment worth ~€147k, ~€8k in land, ~€24k in vehicles, and ~€5k in savings) against roughly €104,000 in liabilities. This was a slight decline from the previous year (end of 2022), when their assets were around €212k and debts ~€94k.

On 22 August 2022, Kairys sold his Volkswagen Tiguan automobile to a company, and two days later (24 August 2022) he entered into a vehicle leasing agreement with Swedbank Leasing for another car.

As of 2022, according to official declarations, Kairys and his wife had approximately €211,885 in total assets (up from about €176,685 in 2021), and their liabilities increased to around €94,239.

On 1 October 2020, Kairys (together with his spouse) took a loan from Swedbank to finance the construction of a house.

As Deputy Mayor of Kaunas (2015–2019), Kairys’s official monthly salary was on the order of €5,600 (gross), which is roughly about €3,300 after taxes (estimated).

In 2015, Simonas Kairys took out a housing mortgage from SEB Bank, which is scheduled to be fully repaid by the year 2049.

According to public records, Kairys’s declared expenses while serving on the Kaunas City Council totaled over €35,000 (2012–2019), making him one of the higher spenders among later government ministers who had been Kaunas councilors.

He was an active member of the Kaunas Liberal Youth organization in his early political career.

Simonas Kairys is a member of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union (Lietuvos šaulių sąjunga).

In 2024, Russia’s authorities put Simonas Kairys (then Culture Minister) on a list of 25 Lithuanian officials wanted for “hostile actions” against Russia (such as removing Soviet monuments).

In May 2023, amid scrutiny of those Kaunas council expense payouts (some lacking receipts), Kairys said he could repay the money if needed but insisted the rules at the time did not require receipts and that his quarterly claims (around €300–€700) were relatively small and justified.

In November 2025, he urged reversing a proposed €24 million cut to the Culture Ministry budget and doubling support for independent media.

In July 2025, Kairys suggested that Lithuania could eventually abolish national high school graduation exams altogether – but only after significantly elevating the prestige and responsibility of the teaching profession.

After being put on a Russian "wanted" list, Kairys quipped that he was glad his work dismantling Soviet-era remnants "did not go unnoticed."

In October 2023, while serving as Culture Minister, Simonas Kairys received a Ukrainian state honor – the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (5th Class).