Alīse Nīgale, founding publisher and managing director of the children's book publishing house Liels un Mazs in Rīga, Latvia, brings over 20 years of publishing and reading promotion expertise. In 2022, Liels un Mazs won the Bologna Prize for the Best Children's Publishers of the Year for Europe (BOP). 

As a board member of the Latvian Publishers' Association since 2020 and a member of IBBY Latvia, she has played crucial roles in promoting children's literature. Alīse has served on the IBBY Latvia board and as director of the International Jānis Baltvilks Prize in Children's Literature and Book Art for 12 years. Recently, she has been a curator of the Authors' program at the Sigulda Children's and Youth Literature Festival.