ECONOMISTS from Bulgaria

1. Kristalina Georgieva (b. 1953)

With an HPI of 60.73, Kristalina Georgieva is the most famous Bulgarian Economist.  Her biography has been translated into 41 different languages on wikipedia.

Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva-Kinova (Bulgarian: Кристалина Иванова Георгиева-Кинова; née Georgieva; born 13 August 1953) is a Bulgarian economist serving as the 12th managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 2019, and the first person from an emerging market economy to lead the institution. Born in Sofia, her university education was at London School of Economics (LSE), followed by a return to her native Bulgaria where she witnessed some of the economic hardships of the post-Communist transition. She began her career by teaching economics, becoming a prominent figure in the field. 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. From 2014 to 2016, as Vice-President of the European Commission for Budget and Human Resources, she managed the EU's budget and staff, through the aftermath of the Euro Area debt crisis and during the 2015 refugee crisis. As the first Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank from 2017 to 2019, Georgieva led significant reforms 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 has 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. Georgieva's professional ethics were called into question during her tenure at the World Bank Group, due to a 2021 independent inquiry, led by former US Attorney for Washington D.C. Ronald Machen and the law firm WilmerHale, which found she manipulated the World Bank's Doing Business report. The investigation found that Georgieva instructed 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 inexplicably 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 is recognized as one of the most influential women globally, ranking 12th on Forbes’ List of the Most Powerful Women in 2023.