Teresa Sygnarek was born in Poland and has lived in Sweden since 1969. She graduated from the University of Lund with a bachelor's degree in marketing and communications and completed postgraduate studies in international marketing. She has worked in the energy sector and runs her own consulting company.
She is active in the sector of non-governmental Polish diaspora organizations.
Since 1986, she has been an active member of the "Polish Flowers" in Malmo, an organization for Polish children and youth of Polish origin. She served as accountant, secretary, vice-president, then in the years 2004-2016 as President, and currently, she is the honorary President of this organization.
Since 2002, she has been a member of the board of the national federal organization of the "Union of Polish Associations in Sweden", where she has been the President since 2011.
In 2015, she founded the "Pro Polonia Malmo" foundation, whose statutory activity is raising funds to permit the establishment of a Polish Diaspora House in Southern Sweden.
From 2015-2018, she was the general secretary of the "European Union of Polish Communities" and from 2018 she is the vice-president.
She is the initiator and organizer of annual conferences for overseas Polish media and training for Polish journalists abroad. From 2014 - 2017, these were held as European Forums of the Polish Media Abroad, and from 2018 the conference has a global presence.
She is the initiator and President of the World Association of Polish Media Abroad, which was founded in 2019.
Since 2011, she has been the editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine in Sweden, "Polonia Nowa".
For her services to the Polish diaspora in Sweden, she has received a gold honorary medal from the "Union of Polish Associations in Sweden" and a badge of honour from the organization "Polish Flowers". She also received a diploma of recognition from the Polish-Swedish Society in Poland for strengthening the cooperation between the Swedish and Polish communities and promoting Poland in the international arena.
In 2003, she was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit by the Polish President, Aleksander Kwaśniewski. In 2008, she received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland from the Polish President, Lech Kaczyński.