Kristalina Georgieva has been serving as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since October 1, 2019. She began her second term on October 1, 2024.
Ms. Georgieva has led the IMF’s unprecedented response to multiple global shocks, including the pandemic, several wars and conflicts, and the cost-of-living crisis. The IMF provided around $1 trillion in liquidity and reserves at affordable cost to members, through balance-of-payments support to nearly 100 countries and an SDR allocation. It also delivered much-needed debt service relief to its poorest members. IMF financing increased the resilience of vulnerable member countries to shocks, thereby reducing social and economic costs for households and businesses.
Ms. Georgieva engaged the IMF membership in efforts to ensure that the IMF remains adequately resourced for a world of more frequent and severe shocks. This included securing the IMF Board of Governors’ approval for an equiproportional 50 percent increase in member quota shares, as well as important funding reforms to the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, enabling permanently higher concessional lending for the IMF’s poorest members. In 2024, Ms. Georgieva also oversaw the addition of a third Sub-Saharan African Chair to the IMF’s Executive Board.
Under Ms. Georgieva’s stewardship, the IMF bolstered its support for resilience-building by member countries, including through intensified surveillance and policy advice, additional financing when needed, and stepped-up capacity development. Notable steps have included the creation of the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable and other initiatives with the World Bank to make debt restructuring processes more timely and predictable, as well as reforms to better align IMF lending instruments with member country needs and to lower lending costs.
Before joining the IMF, Ms. Georgieva served as CEO of the World Bank from January 2017 to September 2019, where she also held the role of Interim President. During her tenure, she was instrumental in securing a historic $13 billion capital increase, significantly strengthening the World Bank’s ability to address global development challenges and support its members.
Previously, Ms. Georgieva helped shape the agenda of the European Union, first as Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, and later as Vice President for Budget and Human Resources. As Commissioner, she was credited with strengthening the EU’s humanitarian response, managing one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid budgets, and significantly improving the efficiency of the EU’s civil protection function. As Vice President, she oversaw the EU’s €161 billion ($175 billion) budget and 33,000 staff, and played an important role in the EU’s response to the Euro Area debt crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis.
Ms. Georgieva began her career in public service at the World Bank in 1993, rising through several positions, to 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.
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1953, Ms. Georgieva holds a Ph.D in Economic Science and an M.A. in Political Economy and Sociology from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia, where she was an Associate Professor between 1977 and 1993. During her academic career, she was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ms. Georgieva has authored and co-authored over 100 publications on economic policy, including textbooks on macro- and microeconomics.
Ms. Georgieva has received numerous awards and honors. She received the Ugo La Malfa Award in 2024 for her contribution to international cooperation, and the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished International Leadership Award in acknowledgement of exceptional and distinctive contributions during her career in public service. She has been featured on TIME’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, appeared on Forbes and Barron’s lists of most influential women in U.S. finance, and was named “European of the Year” and “Commissioner of the Year” by European Voice in 2010.
