Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová

Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová (born 1989) is a former Slovak television editor, reporter, and presenter. She became a member of the European Parliament for the social-liberal Progressive Slovakia party in the June 2024 election.

Early life and education
Ostrihoňová was born on 3 February 1989 in Bratislava in what was at the time Czechoslovakia but is now the capital of Slovakia. She graduated from the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme at the Gymnasium Jur Hronec, a bilingual English-Slovak school. She then studied political science and history at New York University (NYU). She graduated "summa cum laude" in 2012 and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic society.

Career
She started to work in television in 2013 on the Markíza TV station, where she was an editor in the news programme Televízne noviny, focusing on health topics. In 2015, she presented Showbiz noviny. From June 2017, she hosted the talk show Sit down with Veronika, travelling throughout Slovakia to interview inspiring personalities. Among the programme's guests were the journalist, Monika Tódová, the future president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, the Slovak ice-hockey player Richard Lintner and the actor, Ján Koleník. From 2019 she established a YouTube channel, Very Veri. In 2019, she won the Slovakian TV Screen Personality award in the News Editor category. In 2020 she and others founded the ŽEMY podcast, stressing the role of women in decision making. From 2021 to 2024, she co-created and moderated the discussion show for women Silná zostva on RTVS. In 2023, the Slovak edition of Forbes magazine listed her in 7th place in the ranking of Slovak "influencers". In 2023, she was the editor-in-chief of the first-ever issue of ForbesWomen in Slovakia.

Political activity
In presenting programmes her interests were related to gender and other inequalities, current affairs, history, culture, and politics. In 2024, she was a successful candidate in the European elections, on the candidate list of Progressive Slovakia (PS) led by ex-prime minister Ľudovít Ódor, becoming a member of the Renew Europe grouping within the European Parliament. She was elected together with five other candidates from the PS list, the party's biggest-ever delegation in Brussels. As a result of her political activities, RTVS terminated her role in Silná kostva.

Personal life
On 10 September 2016, Ostrihoňová married radio and television presenter and YouTuber Matej Cifra. They had a daughter in 2019 and a son in 2022.