Antanas Guoga

Antanas Guoga (born 17 December 1973), more commonly known as Tony G, is a Lithuanian-Australian businessman, poker player, politician and philanthropist.

He had a fifth-place finish in the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris 2003.

He finished in the money twice at the 2004 World Series of Poker in Seven-card stud and Pot Limit Texas hold 'em tournaments and three months later earned his then biggest tournament money finish in the WPT Grand Prix de Paris 2004, where his second-place finish to England's Surinder Sunar earned him $414,478.

He finished on the bubble later in the same month at the WPT 2004 Mirage Poker Showdown.

Guoga was nominated as a candidate for the European parliamentary elections at the summer congress of the Liberal Movement in the last week of June 2013.

During 2014–2019 he was a Member of the European Parliament for the Liberal Movement, and from 2016 the European Peoples Party.

Guoga was second in the list of the Lithuanian Liberal Movement in the elections to the European Parliament 2014, and was elected as the MEP with 97,907 votes ending on top of the list.

After the corruption allegations of Eligijus Masiulis, Guoga became a temporary chairman of the Liberal Movement.

In 2015 Guoga was chosen as the Lithuanian representative in the POLITICO 28 list.

The European affairs weekly newspaper chose one person from each of the European Union's 28 member-states who is "shaping, shaking and stirring Europe."

Guoga was elected as the vice-chairman of the European Parliament delegation to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, appointed as a member of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a substitute member of the delegation for relations with Switzerland and Norway in the EU-Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and in the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee.

He was also a substitute member in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL).

Guoga is Coder Dojo and entrepreneurship education ambassador in Lithuania.

For four years in a row, 2015, 2016 and 2017 he organized the biggest ICT and entrepreneurship event in the Baltics #SWITCH!

This event in 4 years has grown by 60% from 6000 participants in 2015 to 15000 in 2018.

About 200 speakers from 16 countries already participated in the event.

Among them was Vice-President of the European Commission for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip, Vytenis Andriukaits, EC Commissioner and representatives of tech leaders such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, Allegro, Dash, Dell, Oath, Nasdaq, Mastercard, Tele2

In May 2016, Guoga was the temporary leader of the Liberal Movement following the bribery scandal that prompted Eligijus Masiulis to step down after potentially corrupt activities.

Guoga spent his childhood in Kaunas and in the Alytus district (Kalesninkai) in Lithuania.

When he was 11 years old, he moved to Australia.

Guoga lived in Melbourne where he graduated from school, and had various jobs, including repairing sewing machines and washing cars.

Guoga was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats group in the European Parliament until 4 October 2016.

He became a member of the European People's Party which is the biggest party in the Parliament.

He worked on a range of digital policies in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO).

Guoga was actively involved in a number of Digital Single Market topics.

Being an entrepreneur himself, Guoga worked for better conditions for European businesses, especially in the technology sector.

These conditions include smarter regulations, less red tape, and policies that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

In 2016, he launched Coder Dojo movement in Lithuania and was one of the organisers of programming clubs for 7–17 years old youth in the country.

In 2016–2017, Guoga was Chief Investment Officer to the Mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius.

After public criticism by the party members, Guoga left the party on 17 May 2016.

On 9 March 2019 Guoga announced that he would seek re-election to the European Parliament with the Lithuanian Centre Party.

The party received 5.13% of the national vote and did not receive any representatives in the European Parliament.

As a child, Guoga was the Rubik's Cube champion of Lithuania before moving to Melbourne, Australia, at the age of 11.

He has played poker since the age of 18, and is known for his outlandish table talk and frequent attempts at intimidation of his opponents.

In November 2020, Antanas was elected to the 2020–2024 legislative period of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania in the Labour Party group.

In November 2020 he was elected to the Labour Party Group in the Lithuanian national parliament: the Seimas,

Main areas of engagement: Legislation and parliamentary scrutiny

Activities: Law-making, including consideration of draft legal acts, assessment of legislative proposals and submission of conclusions to the Seimas, drawing of conclusions regarding international treaties of the Republic of Lithuania and other foreign policy matters considered by the Seimas;

Contribution to shaping of international trade and development cooperation policy;

Debates on representation of the Seimas at international organisations, submission of recommendations concerning the activities of the Seimas delegations, co-ordination of activities of the groups for inter-parliamentary relations; parliamentary scrutiny of the ministries and other governmental agencies implementing foreign policy, submission of proposals and recommendations on the improvement of their activities; Cultivation and development of relations, in co-operation with governmental and non-governmental organisations.