VIESTURS KOZIOLS

 (LAT) - COUNCIL MEMBER

Born on 24 August 1963 in Riga, Latvia / Soviet Union. Koziols is a Latvian businessman, real estate developer and media and sports organizations founder.

After graduating at the University of Latvia in the faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, he started his professional career as director of the newspaper Atmoda, the first Latvian independent media outlet during Soviet times, and was among the organizers of the Baltic Way and the Latvian independence movement. He was an advisor to Prime Ministers Ivars Godmanis and Valdis Birkavs and Minister of Economics Juris Lujans.

He later worked for Norwegian retail chain Varner Baltija and real estate company Varner Hakon Invest and has since participated as an investor, developer and consultant in the development of shopping malls, hotels, office buildings and real estate.

He is a board member in several NGOs and a member of the advisory board to the rector of the University of Latvia and of the advisory board at the University Turiba. He was also a chairman of Latvijas Krajbanka. He was owner of Zurnals publishing the weekly magazine Republika.lv. He was one of the founders of the photography studio Imagine. He was a major shareholder and chairman of the media holding Diena and established the companies LDF Holding (Norway) and LDIC (Singapore) and is the main shareholder of Space Group (Norway).

In ice hockey he was owner and president of the HK Riga 2000 that won four consecutive Latvian championships and became a shareholder and chairman (for the first season) of Dinamo Riga when the KHL club was founded. He has been a board member and General Secretary of the Latvian Hockey Federation since 2016.

He is fluent in English, Latvian and Russian.