Spring Meetings

Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She is the first person from an emerging market economy to lead the IMF since its inception in 1944. Before joining the Fund, Ms. Georgieva was Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank and also served as Interim President for a time. Previously, she served at the European Commission as Vice President for Budget and Human Resources – and as Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. She was named “European of the Year” and “Commissioner of the Year” by European Voice for her leadership in the European Union’s humanitarian response to crises.

Benoît Cœuré was appointed Head of the BIS Innovation Hub in 2020. He is a member of the Bank's Executive Committee. Previously, he was a member of the ECB's Executive Board. From 2013 to 2019, he chaired the BIS's Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures. Prior to joining the ECB, he served in various positions at the French Treasury and the French debt management office. Between 2007 and 2009, he was France's Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Affairs, Trade and Development, co-chair of the Paris Club, and G8 and G20 Finance Sous-Sherpa for France. From 2009 to 2011, he was Deputy Director General and Chief Economist at the French Treasury. Mr. Cœuré is a graduate of the École Polytechnique in Paris. He holds an advanced degree in Statistics and Economic Policy from the École nationale de la statistique et de l'administration économique (ENSAE), and a bachelor's degree in Japanese. He has authored articles and books on economic policy, the international monetary system and the economics of European integration.

Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a former head of the IMF’s China Division.

Prasad’s latest book is The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance (Harvard University Press, 2021). He is also the author of Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi (Oxford, 2016) and The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance (Princeton, 2014). Prasad has testified before the Senate Finance Committee, the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the creator of the Brookings-Financial Times world economy index (TIGER: Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery). His op-ed articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, andWashington Post.

Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”. Mr Wolf is an honorary fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, an honorary fellow of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy (Oxonia) and an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos since 1999. He was made a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Nottingham University in July 2006. He was made a Doctor of Science (Economics) of London University, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in December 2006. His most recent publications are Why Globalization Works and Fixing Global Finance.