Elena Leontjeva is cofounder and president of Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), an independent think tank that promotes the ideas of individual freedom and responsibility, the free market, and limited government through policy analysis, advocacy, and educational activities. She led LFMI from its inception until 2001 and returned to serve as the organization’s president in 2020.

Elena played a key role in building legal and institutional foundations for Lithuania’s economy, including the currency board and laws to guarantee the value of the currency, the securities market, banking, tax and budget reforms, private pension insurance, and downsizing state functions and deregulation known as the Sunset and Sunrise initiatives. She previously served as senior economic advisor to former Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and state counselor on economic reform issues under six administrations. 

She has pioneered and led multidisciplinary research of scarcity and lack, incorporating philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics. Elena co-created the 2019 documentary Sublime Thirst, an interdisciplinary study examining the phenomenon of scarcity from the ancient Greeks to the present day. In addition, she is author of the novel The Market Square, or the Story of Two Joannes.