- Introduction & Quick Facts
- From Sofia to the world stage
- A career shaped by crisis and reform
- Leading the IMF in turbulent times
Kristalina Georgieva
- Introduction & Quick Facts
- From Sofia to the world stage
- A career shaped by crisis and reform
- Leading the IMF in turbulent times
Kristalina Georgieva (born August 13, 1953, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian economist and the leader of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). When she took the position in 2019, she was the first person from a country classified as an emerging market to preside over the IMF. She previously served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the World Bank and vice president of the European Commission.
From Sofia to the world stage
Raised in an affluent household in Sofia, Georgieva is the great-granddaughter of Ivan Karshovski, one of the architects of the Bulgarian state after it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Her father was a civil engineer who oversaw road construction projects; her mother worked as a scarf weaver and later as a shop manager. The family’s finances grew strained after her father became seriously ill. The experience “drove me to mature much faster,” she told the Financial Times in 2017.
She studied sociology and political economy at the Karl Marx Higher Institute of Economics in Sofia (renamed the University of National and World Economy in 1990), where she earned a doctorate in economic sciences in 1986. Her thesis was Environmental Protection Policy and Economic Growth in the USA. She also wrote a textbook about microeconomics that remained a curriculum staple for decades.
A career shaped by crisis and reform
Georgieva was a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, she moved to the United States to join the World Bank as an environmental economist and went on to run programs in Russia, China, and the East Asia and Pacific regions. In 2008, she was appointed vice president and corporate secretary. Her husband, Kino Kinov, a Bulgarian engineer, and their daughter, Dessi, remained in Sofia.
In 2010, Bulgaria’s prime minister, Boyko Borisov, asked Georgieva to join the European Commission as a representative of her home country. The previous nominee had withdrawn under pressure from the European Parliament, putting Bulgaria in a diplomatically awkward position. Georgieva received a call at 3 a.m. and within hours was on a plane to Europe from the U.S., she told Politico. She didn’t hesitate to leave her job at the World Bank—where she was a vice president—because, as she put it, “the situation wasn’t good for Bulgaria and there was a possibility of our reputation being hurt.” She left so quickly that her 89-year-old mother learned the news from television. “If she had refused because of personal interests,” her mother said, “she would have disappointed me because the motherland comes first.”
Georgieva’s first job at the commission was to oversee humanitarian aid projects, including responses to earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Later, she was put in charge of the European Union’s €155 billion budget. Politico said in 2010 that she had a reputation as “a woman who manages with an iron hand, someone of inexhaustible energy who can chafe at slow progress.” At the same time, the publication said, she seemed to be almost universally well-liked by her colleagues, in part because she worked so hard.
In 2016, she ran unsuccessfully for the job of United Nations secretary-general. The following year, she returned to the World Bank as its chief executive. “When it was announced she was coming back, everybody felt it was a real coup,” another former World Bank official, Karen Mathiasen, told the Financial Times in 2019. She ultimately negotiated a $13 billion capital increase for the organization despite skepticism from Donald Trump’s administration. Under her leadership, the World Bank committed to focusing on climate change, gender disparity, and assistance for fragile states.
Leading the IMF in turbulent times
Georgieva took over as the head of the IMF on October 1, 2019. At 66, she was over the IMF’s age limit of 65 for applicants, but the IMF waived the rule under pressure from France. She stressed that she saw it as the IMF’s role to help stabilize the global economic and financial system by encouraging cooperation between countries.
The IMF and World Bank: Different organizations, distinct missions
Kristalina Georgieva has held top roles at both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—two organizations that often get mentioned in the same breath but do very different things.
The IMF helps countries deal with financial emergencies by providing short-term loans and policy advice during crises. The World Bank focuses on long-term projects, like building schools or improving infrastructure, especially in poorer countries.
Much of her first five-year term was spent dealing with the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In a 2022 interview with The Observer, the Sunday edition of The Guardian, Georgieva said she was “very worried,” noting that for the first time in decades, developing countries were falling behind. She pointed to rising poverty, hunger, and instability and warned of a growing divide between wealthier nations and the rest of the world, driven by unequal access to vaccines and economic support.
Georgieva’s brother, who married a Ukrainian woman, was in Kharkiv during the early days of the Russian invasion, which added to Georgieva’s stress.
In March 2024, the EU’s finance ministers endorsed Georgieva for a second term. In April, the IMF’s executive board formally reappointed Georgieva to a second five-year term as managing director, beginning October 1. She was the sole candidate for the role.