Jolanta Kwaśniewska


Jolanta Kwaśniewska is a Polish lawyer and charity activist who was First Lady of Poland between 1995 and 2005, as the wife of the then President Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
She met the future president while she was a law student at the University of Gdańsk, and they married in 1979. During her studies she was the president of the executive committee of the Socialist Union of Polish Students, in which her husband was also active.
Kwaśniewska has been widely involved in charity work, and in 1997 founded the charity foundation Porozumienie bez barier, whose aims include providing help and support to sick and disabled children.
She is also the host of the television show Lekcja stylu on TVN Style.

Biography

Kwaśniewska was a graduate of the 9th High School in Gdańsk. In 1979, she graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Gdańsk, then tried to pass the judge's apprenticeship exam. During her studies, she was the head of the faculty council of the Socialist Union of Polish Students.
In November 1979, she married Aleksander Kwasniewski. On February 16, 1981, she gave birth to a daughter, Aleksandra. In 1984, she started her professional career in the Swedish-Polish Polish diaspora PAAT, producing, among others imitation jewellery for the Soviet Union market. In this company, she was, among others Chief Commercial Officer. In 1991 she started her own business - a real estate agency called Royal Wilanów, in which she founded with the wife of Ireneusz Nawrocki, later president of Powszechny Zakład Ubezpieczeń Życie. She managed this agency until her husband took the office of President of Poland in 1995. During her husband's office, the company was handed over to trusteeship. After the end of the second presidential term of her husband in 2005, she returned to the management of this agency.

Honours