Iliana Iotova

About

Iliana Malinova Iotova (née Todorova; born 24 October 1964) is a Bulgarian politician and journalist who has served as president of Bulgaria since 23 January 2026. She is the first woman to hold the office. A member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Iotova previously served as vice president under Rumen Radev from 2017 to 2026, when she became the first Bulgarian vice president to assume the presidency intra-term due to Radev’s resignation.

== Early life ==
Iliana Malinova Iotova was born in Sofia, People’s Republic of Bulgaria on 24 October 1964. She studied in the Lycée Français de Sofia. She received a degree in Bulgarian and French philology from the University of Sofia and later specialized at the École nationale d’administration (ENA, National School of Administration) in Strasbourg, France, and the Center for European Studies (CEES) of the University of Strasbourg.
In the 1980s, Malinova worked as a nurse at the First Hospital of Sofia St John the Baptist. From 1990 to 1997, she worked at Bulgarian National Television as a reporter, editor, director, presenter of news and current affairs programmes and also became head of the News and Current Affairs Directorate. She then…