Ionica Adriana is a Romanian-born British stage and screen actress, presenter, and popular speaker.
Born near Transylvania, Ionica was adopted by a British family when she was two and a half years old.
Due to her complicated start to life and fast-growing career, Ionica is a popular guest speaker at small and large events, offering her entertaining and fascinating life story. She is also a highly sought-after presenter and live event host who has worked at Countryfile Live, Carfest, and MOVE IT – the UK’s biggest dance convention.
In the years before Ionica was born, the Romanian Communist Dictator enforced strict rules regarding the population. This resulted in widespread poverty, which meant parents were either too malnourished to support their children, or couldn’t afford to. Many were brought up by unclean state-run institutions, and it was in a Romanian orphanage that Ionica spent the first two and a half years of her life before she was adopted and moved to England.
Ionica has always been honest about her adoption, saying that “my adoption has never been a secret, my parents have always been very transparent about it”, and it is this honesty that she brings to her presenting and speaking engagements.
Ionica Acting Career
Ionica trained for two years at the East 15 Acting School in performance arts and stage combat. Her flourishing career has won her high recognition and awards. In 2018 she was named Best Emerging Actress at the International Achievement Recognition Awards for her role as the Genie in the stage version of Aladdin. She has also been nominated for the Best Female Solo Artist and NEA Choice Award at the National Entertainment Awards.
Away from the stage, Ionica has acted in many television shows and films, including Coronation Street (2023), Paranoid (2016), Splitting the Bill (2018), The Syndicate (2021), Glaciers (2022), Girls Do Not Dress For Boys (2015), and Schadenfreude (2018).

Ionica Presenting Career
As well as her acting career, Ionica has presented a number of television and radio programmes, for channels including BBC Radio York, Yorkshire Cast, BBC Leeds, BBC Politics, BBC Look North, BBC Leeds, and Countryfile Live. In 2017, she presented the documentary The Acting Class, alongside actors Maxine Peake and Christopher Eccleston.
Her best-known presenting job came in 2022, where she fronted the BBC Radio 4 documentary Ceaușescu’s Children, which gave her the opportunity to return to Romania to see how the children were living in the country today.

Ionica Corporate Work
Ionica has appeared at Carfest on several occasions, speaking and presenting about how she lives with purpose and how to practice self-love. Due to her fascinating life story, she is often asked to appear at big events, as well as schools, colleges, graduations, and seminars.
She has made speaking, presenting, and hosting appearances at King’s College London, MOVE IT convention, CYD? (Can You Dance) UK’s touring convention, Countryfile Live, Newcastle Film Festival, and the 2018 Festival of Remembrance.