SPEAKERS 2026

Mihály Varga

Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Governor

Born in Karcag in 1965, he earned his secondary school diploma in Áron Gábor Secondary School in 1983, and he went on to graduate from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences in 1989.

He worked as an economist at the No. 43 State Construction Corporation in Budapest, and in 1990 at the Eastern-Hungarian Water Management and Planning Enterprise in Szolnok. Between 1995 and 1997, he was a visiting instructor at the Szolnok Economic College, and an honorary college professor.

Between 1998 and 2001, he served as Minister of State for Policy at the Ministry of Finance, and from 2001 to 2002, he held the position of Minister of Finance. Between 2010 and 2012 he was Minister of State, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, and then he became Minister without Portfolio responsible for the relations with some international financial organisations. From March 2013 to 2018 he was Minister of National Economy. From March 2017 to 2022 he was President of the National Competitiveness Council. Between 2018 and 2024 he served as Minister of Finance. Since 4 March 2025, he has been the Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank.

From 1990 to February, 2025 he was member of Parliament in representation of Fidesz. He was an elected member of Parliament for the 8th constituency of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County between 1998 and 2014, then he was the elected member of Parliament in an individual electoral district for the Budapest 4th constituency between 2014 and 2022. Between 1994 and 2003 and from 2005 to 2013, he was one of the vice presidents of Fidesz.

Roles in public life: Since 1997, the vice-president of the Hungarian-Kazakh Friendship. From 2000, member of the Chivalric Order of St John. From 2001 to 2011, presbyter of the Reformed Church congregation in Karcag, and a member of the Rákóczi Association. From 2003 to 2015, Chair of the Nagykun Civil Association. Member of the Hungarian Athletic Club. From 2012 to 2025, co-president of the Joint Venture Association, the Hungarian-Kazakh Intergovernmental Committee for Economic Cooperation and the Hungarian-Korean Joint Economic Committee. From 2013 to 2025, the president of the Board of Trustees of the Annamária Szalay Media Foundation. From 2021 to 2023, the president of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Rudolf Kalman University. From 2021 to 2025, the president of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Civic Education.

He is married, a father to four children.

Martin Kocher

Oesterreichische Nationalbank

Governor

Martin Kocher is Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and member of the ECB’s Governing Council since September 2025. He held the positions of Austrian Federal Minister of Labour from 2021 to 2022 and Federal Minster of Labour and the Economy from 2022 to March 2025.

Prior to this, he was Scientific Director of the Vienna-based Institute for Advanced Studies, President of the Fiscal Advisory Council and Chairman of the Statistics Council. He is Full Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna and has held academic positions at universities in Munich, East Anglia, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Brisbane and Innsbruck, where he obtained his doctorate.

Beata Javorcik

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Chief Economist

JBeata Javorcik is Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. She is on leave from the University of Oxford, where she is the first woman to hold a Statutory Professorship in Economics. She is also a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee at ifo Institute, University of Munich, as well as of the Executive and Supervisory Committee of CERGE-EI in Prague. Before taking up her position at Oxford, she worked at the World Bank in Washington DC, where she focused on research, lending operations and policy advice. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale and a B.A. in Economics (Summa cum Laude) from the University of Rochester.

Klaas Knot

De Netherlandsche Bank

Former President

Klaas Knot was President of De Nederlandsche Bank from 1 July 2011 to 1 July 2025 and served as Chair of the Financial Stability Board from 2 December 2021 to 1 July 2025. He was also a member of the Governing Council and the General Council of the European Central Bank, member of the European Systemic Risk Board, member of the International Monetary Fund's Board of Governors and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements.

Klaas currently runs his own strategic consultancy firm, KK Economic Advisory, where he advises European and Dutch public authorities on wide-ranging issues such as crisis management, central bank independence, and financing public infrastructure. He is also a frequent speaker at various national and international conferences and symposia.

Klaas holds several secondary positions. Since 2005, he has been (honorary) professor of economics of central banking at the University of Groningen, and since 2015 he has also been honorary professor of monetary stability at the Economics and Business Department of the University of Amsterdam. Klaas has published a variety of articles in leading Dutch and international journals in the fields of monetary and financial economics. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty, a global advisory body comprised of economic and financial leaders.

Before assuming DNB’s presidency, Klaas Knot served as Deputy Treasurer-General and Director of Financial Markets at the Dutch Ministry of Finance (2009–2011). From 1995 to 2009, he fulfilled various roles at DNB, interrupted by positions at the International Monetary Fund (1998-1999) and the former Dutch Pensions and Insurance Supervisory Authority (2003-2004).

In 1991, he graduated with honors in economics from the University of Groningen. In 1995, he obtained his PhD in economics there.

Date of birth: 14 April 1967, Onderdendam.

Robert Koopman

American University’s School of International Service

Professor Lecturer

Bob Koopman is currently Editor-in-Chief of the forthcoming Global Value Chain Development Report, 2027 and he served as Editor-in-Chief the 2025 edition: The GVC Development Report 2025: Rewiring Global Value Chains in a Changing Global Economy, and also is Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University’s School of International Service and serves as Senior Academic Advisor to the Research Institute for Global Value Chains at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. His research focuses on the impact of trade and trade policy on economic development and growth.

Bob previously served as the Chief Economist of the World Trade Organization and as Adjunct Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute, Geneva from 2014 to 2022. Between 1999 to 2014 Bob served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Economist at the United States International Trade Commission. Bob also previously served as Deputy Administrator for Economic and Community Systems at the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, USDA, and various leadership positions at the Economic Research Service of USDA from 1985 to 1999.

Catherine L Mann

Bank of England

Member of the Monetary Policy Committee

Catherine L Mann is a member of the Monetary Council of the Bank of England. She has been reappointed for a second term on 1 September 2024.

In addition to her role on the Monetary Policy Committee, Catherine's academic and research affiliations include professor of the practice at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and honorary professor at the University of Manchester and the Productivity Institute. She was in the first cohort of fellows of Centre for Economic Policy Research and the Royal Economics Society.

Before her appointment, Catherine was global chief economist at Citibank (2018 to 2021) and the chief economist, head of the economics department and G20 finance deputy at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2014 to 2017). Before that, she was Rosenberg Professor of Global Finance at Brandeis University, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and assistant director in the international finance division at the Federal Reserve Board. She also worked at the World Bank and the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House.

Catherine is a member of the Society of Professional Economists in the UK, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Economic Association in the US, among others. Previously, she was chair of the Economic Advisory Committee of the American Bankers Association, a member of the executive board of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, on the board of the National Association for Business Economics and of the advisory committees of the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Boston and New York.

Catherine's research has focused on international economic relationships and outcomes, covering trade, finance, climate, productivity and inequality. She has authored or co-authored seven books, more than 60 articles and several shorter pieces and testimony.

She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Athanasios Orphanides

MIT Sloan School of Management

Professor

Athanasios Orphanides is a Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Chair of the Board of Governors of Asia School of Business.

He is also an Honorary Advisor to the Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability, and a Fellow at the European Money and Finance Forum

Before joining MIT Sloan, he held positions at central banks in the United States and in Europe. From May 2007 to May 2012, he served a five-year term as Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus and was a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. Earlier, he served as Senior Advisor at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he had started his professional career as an economist.

Carmen Reinhart

Harvard Kennedy School

Professor

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. From 2020-2022 she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at The World Bank Group and was Chief Economist the investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1980s. She was Policy Advisor and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund, a member of the Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisors, among others. Her work has helped to inform the understanding of financial crises in both advanced economies and emerging markets. Her best-selling book (with Kenneth S. Rogoff) entitled This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly documents the striking similarities of the recurring booms and busts that have characterized financial history. It has been translated to over two dozen languages and won the Paul A. Samuelson Award. She is an American Economic Association Distinguished Fellow, an elected member of the Group of Thirty and is a member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reinhart is ranked among the top economists worldwide according to Research Papers in Economics (RePec). She has been listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance, Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and Thompson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. In 2018, she was awarded the King of Spain Prize in Economics and NABE’s Adam Smith Award, among others.

Jeromin Zettelmeyer

Bruegel

Director

Jeromin Zettelmeyer has been Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic policy think tank, since September 2022. He was previously a Deputy Director of the Strategy and Policy Review Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (2016-19), Director-General for Economic Policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2014-16); Director of Research and Deputy Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2008-2014), and IMF staff member(1994-2008).

Jeromin holds an economics degree from the University of Bonn and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT (1995). He is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a member of CEPR’s Research and Policy Network on European Economic Policy, and a board member of the Euro50. His recent work has focused on the EU fiscal framework, public debt sustainability, economic security, and international climate finance.

Zoltán Kurali

Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Deputy Governor

From April 25, 2025, he serves as Deputy Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, responsible for monetary policy, financial stability, and foreign reserve management. Prior to his appointment, he was the CEO of the Government Debt Management Agency (ÁKK Zrt.).

Between 2006 and 2019, he worked at Deutsche Bank, where he held several senior positions, including CEO of the Hungarian branch, Head of Capital Markets, Head of Bond Origination and Head of Corporate Finance in the CEE region. He was involved in numerous strategic debt and equity financing transactions, as well as in foreign exchange, interest rate, commodity, and credit risk management, primarily in Hungary and the Central and Eastern European region.

From 1999 to 2006, he worked at Citibank as Head of Treasury Sales. He graduated from the Budapest University of Economics in 1998. He began his professional career during his university years as a research analyst at various local brokerage firms and worked on a project basis at ÁKK between 1997 and 1998.

Dániel Palotai

Deputy Governor

Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Born in Budapest in 1978, he graduated in 2004 from Corvinus University of Budapest, Faculty of Economics, with a Masters degree in Finance and a Minor in Actuarial Science.

He began his professional career at the Magyar Nemzeti Bank in 2004 as an analyst in the Monetary Strategy Department of the Economics Directorate. Between 2007 and 2010 he served at the European Central Bank as an economist responsible for non-euro area EU member states. From November 2010, he headed the Macroeconomic Policy Department of the Ministry for National Economy and represented Hungary in the European Union’s Economic Policy Committee (EPC).

From 2013 to 2020, he was Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank. During this period, he was also a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the European Central Bank and a Member of the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC) of the European Union.

In 2015, he was awarded the Sándor Popovics Prize, granted to economists under the age of 45 for outstanding professional achievements.

Between 2020 and 2025, he served in Washington, DC on the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), representing the Central and Eastern European Constituency as Executive Director, and from November 2024 as Alternate Executive Director.

As from September 2025, he is Deputy Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, in which capacity he is responsible for international relations.

He is an Honorary Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest and Member of the Board of Trustees of Maecenas Universitatis Corvini Foundation. Since 2017, he is Vice President of the Hungarian Economic Association (MKT). Between 2016 and 2020, he served as Chairman of the Editorial Board of Financial and Economic Review, since 2020 he is Editor-in-Chief. Since 2019, he has also been a member of the Editorial Board of Economic Review.