Irena Koleva

Irena is Managing Partner at Filova, Micheva, Ivanov & Koleva Law Partnership in Sofia. She holds a Master’s degree in Law from Sofia University and is registered with the Sofia Bar Association. Her main practice areas are personal data protection, cybersecurity, AI governance, digital law, and regulatory compliance.

Irena has more than ten years of legal experience, including as a managing associate at a Big4 law firm in Bulgaria. She has been working in the field of data protection and digital law since 2017, with extensive experience in GDPR gap analysis and implementation, performing the functions of external DPO registered with the Bulgarian supervisory authority (Commission for Personal Data Protection), and projects on ePrivacy, DORA, NIS2, and the EU AI Act.

She is a certified privacy and AI governance professional, holding the CIPP/E, AIGP, and FIP credentials from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Irena chaired the IAPP Bulgaria KnowledgeNet Chapter from 2023 to 2025 and is a member of Women4Cyber Bulgaria.

She has lectured at privacy, cybersecurity, and AI forums and conducted EU AI Act trainings for Bulgarian companies. She is the author of numerous articles and publications on data protection and AI for reputable Bulgarian and international media.

Irena’s practice spans local and multinational engagements across due diligence, advisory, and compliance, including cross-border data-flow scenarios. She maintains active community roles in Bulgaria’s privacy and cybersecurity professional networks.