Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva-Kinova (; ; born 13 August 1953) is a Bulgarian economist who has served as the 12th managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 2019. She is the first person from an emerging market economy to lead the institution.
She began her career by teaching economics.
Serving as European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, and Crisis Response from 2010 to 2014, Georgieva directed EU resources to aid those affected by crises including the 2010 Haiti earthquake.Naharnet Newsdesk, As vice-president of the European Commission for Budget and Human Resources from 2014 to 2016, she managed the EU's budget and staff through the aftermath of the Eurozone debt crisis and during the 2015 refugee crisis.
As the first chief executive officer of the World Bank from 2017 to 2019,Xin En Lee, Georgieva led significant reformsSophie Edwards, and secured the largest funding increase in the Bank's history, totaling $13 billion. She also served as Acting President of the World Bank Group in 2019. At the IMF, Georgieva helped steer the global economy through the COVID-19 pandemic, providing $1 trillion in liquidity and reserves, integrating climate considerations into IMF policies, and increasing financial and policy support to vulnerable countries. She was reappointed for a second term in 2024.
In 2021, during her tenure at the World Bank Group, an independent inquiry led by former US Attorney Ronald Machen and the law firm WilmerHale found she manipulated the World Bank's Doing Business report by instructing staff to alter data to inflate the rankings for China and Saudi Arabia. Her leadership of the IMF has also been criticized for being pro-authoritarian and providing forecasts of economic growth in Russia based on cherry-picked economic statistic releases following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Georgieva has been hailed for her work on gender equality and climate change. She was ranked 12th on the Forbes list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2023.
Early life and education Georgieva was born in Sofia to Ivan Stefanov Georgiev, a road worker and civil engineer, and Marinka Petrova Mihailova, a shopkeeper.David J. Lynch, Her great-grandfather was a prominent Bulgarian revolutionary, .James Politi & Kerin Hope,
Georgieva holds a PhD in economics and an MA in Political Economy and Sociology from the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics (now called University of National and World Economy) in Sofia. Her thesis was titled "Environmental Protection Policy and Economic Growth in the USA".
Georgieva was one of the first Bulgarian economists to study in the West before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1990, she published the first textbook in the Bulgarian language on microeconomics, explaining, in simple terms, how a market economy works. She was a post-doctoral research fellow in natural resource economics and environmental policy at the London School of Economics from 1987 to 1988, a Fulbright fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a visiting professor in Fiji at the University of the South Pacific.VLADISLAV VELEV, "Kristalina Georgieva – Globetrotting economist", Politico Europe, 11 March 2010.
Georgieva is fluent in Bulgarian, English, and Russian, and also speaks some French.
Public service career World Bank (1993–2010) Georgieva joined the World Bank Group in 1993 as an environmental economist for Europe and Central Asia. In 1997, Georgieva helped manage the team that helped phase out leaded gasoline in Central and Eastern Europe. From 2004 to 2007 she was the institution's director and resident representative in the Russian Federation, based in Moscow. In 2007, she returned to Washington DC to become Director for Sustainable Development in charge of policy and lending operations in infrastructure, urban development, agriculture, environment, and social development, including support to fragile and conflict affected countries.
She was appointed vice president and corporate secretary in 2008. In this role, she served as the interlocutor between the World Bank Group's senior management, its Board of Directors, and its shareholder countries. During that time, she worked on the bank's governance reform and accompanying capital increase.Secretary-General Appoints High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing United Nations Secretary-General, press release of 21 May 2015. In January 2010, Georgieva announced her intention to resign from this post to join the European Commission.
European Commission (2010–2016) Georgieva's confirmation hearing took place at the European Parliament on 4 February 2010. She faced questions over her suitability for the portfolio. Georgieva identified Haiti as a priority, especially the need to provide shelter and health services and to restore the functions and services of the government, so as to start work on reconstruction and long-term development.
Other key issues raised in discussions with members of the European Parliament (MEPs) included improving co-ordination within the EU and European Commission, and between humanitarian and military players in order to meet the dual challenge posed by expanding needs and shrinking budgets. The need to improve the effectiveness of EU actions and for better response capacity had also been stressed, together with the establishment of the European Voluntary Humanitarian Corps.
Georgieva received a warm response from MEPs, with British S&D MEP Michael Cashman praising her "honesty and deep breadth of knowledge". She was applauded by committee members when she told British ECR Group MEP Nirj Deva that she would stand up for the interests of the EU and be an independent mind.
Slovenian ALDE Group MEP Ivo Vajgl also praised her, saying, "Let me compliment you on your peaceful manner and the confidence you are exuding today." Her performance at the hearing was widely publicized in Bulgaria and broadcast live on many national media, where it was seen as a question of the restoration of national honor following Jeleva's unsuccessful hearing.
The second college of the Barroso Commission, including Georgieva, was approved by the European Parliament on 9 February 2010 by a vote of 488–137 with 72 abstentions, and she took office the following day.
Vice President for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, and Crisis Response In this role, Georgieva worked to direct the available EU resources towards helping people in need: those caught up in humanitarian crises and those affected by disasters ranging from catastrophic earthquakes to pollution spills. Immediately after taking office she took responsibility for coordinating the EU's humanitarian response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and as a result the EU became the primary humanitarian donor.
Georgieva tripled funding for the refugee crisis in Europe.Xin En Lee, "Meet the first CEO of the World Bank: She's made the bank the strongest it's ever been financially", CNBC, 13 July 2018. She launched the European Emergency Response and Coordination Centre to strengthen the EU's disaster response capacity by focusing on preparedness and prevention.
She was involved in coordinating the EU response to the earthquake in Chile and the floods in Pakistan. Amid the Southeast Europe floods in May 2014, Georgieva coordinated post-disaster assistance and helped prepare Serbia's request for aid of as much as €1 billion a year.Gordana Filipovic (20 May 2014), Serbia Appeals for Worldwide Assistance After Deadly Floods Bloomberg Business.
In May 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed her and Nazrin Shah of Perak as co-chairs of the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, an initiative aimed at preparing recommendations for the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. The High Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing secured the adoption of a much more effective system to meet the needs of record numbers of vulnerable people.
Vice President for Budget and Human Resources In 2014, news media reported that the ambassadors of several Western EU countries early on indicated their countries' support for Georgieva to be nominated for the incoming Juncker Commission, indicating that she might get the post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.EU heavyweights advise Bulgaria to nominate Georgieva for Ashton's job EurActiv, 26 June 2014.
Her candidacy had been uncertain because of political infighting in Bulgaria. The collapse of the Socialist government, however, cleared the path for her nomination. By August, Georgi Bliznashki, Bulgaria's interim prime minister, announced her candidacy to replace Britain's Catherine Ashton.Christian Oliver (6 August 2014), Bulgarian commissioner nominated for EU foreign policy post Financial Times.
Incoming European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker instead assigned the post of vice-president for Budget and Human Resources to Georgieva, with experienced EU civil servant Florika Fink-Hooijer as her chef de cabinet. She was thus the most senior technocrat in the Juncker Commission, the only one of the seven vice-presidents never to have served as a national minister.Toby Vogel (2 October 2014), Georgieva catches committee mood European Observer.
In this role, sometimes referred to as the Commission's chief operating officer,QUENTIN ARIÈS AND MAÏA DE LA BAUME, she oversaw the EU's €161 billion budget, 33,000 staff, and reporting to the European Parliament, the Council, and the European Court of Auditors on how the budget of the European Union is spent. Within months of taking her new position, Georgieva was able to negotiate a several-billion-dollar budget increase for 2014.Benjamin Oreskes (4 November 2015), Georgieva's UN job mission Politico Europe.
Georgieva set up the European Solidarity Corps in December 2016, which replaced the European Voluntary Service. Georgieva also worked to increase the representation of women in the Commission's senior and middle management.MAÏA DE LA BAUME,
World Bank (2017–2019) After running for secretary-general of the United Nations, on 28 October 2016, the World Bank announced that Georgieva would become the first CEO of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association starting on 2 January 2017.
On 21 April 2018, World Bank shareholders endorsed an ambitious package of measures that included a $13 billion paid-in capital increase, a series of internal reforms, and a set of policy measures that greatly strengthened the global poverty-fighting institution's ability to scale up resources and deliver on its mission in areas of the world that needed the most assistance."World Bank Group Shareholders Endorse Transformative Capital Package", World Bank,21 April 2018. Georgieva played a key role in securing this increase, the largest in the bank's history.
On 7 January 2019, it was announced that World Bank Group President Kim would be stepping down and Georgieva would assume the role of interim president of the World Bank Group on 1 February 2019.
In October 2021, the International Monetary Fund's executive board initiated an investigation that Georgieva manipulated the Doing Business Report in 2018 during her tenure as World Bank chief. The board later determined that the investigation "did not conclusively demonstrate" that she acted wrongly, and expressed confidence in Georgieva's leadership.
International Monetary Fund (2019–present)