Biographical information on speakers and session chairs

Carlo Altomonte is Professor of Economics of European Integration at the Social and Political Sciences Department of Bocconi University. He is currently the Director of the Globalization and Industry Dynamics unit at the Baffi-Carefin centre of research of Bocconi University, a Non Resident Fellow at Bruegel, a EU think tank, and a Senior Researcher at ISPI, the Italian centre of Studies on International Politics. He has been visiting scholar at the Centre of Economic Performance of the London School of Economics and at the Research Department of the European Central Bank. His main areas of research and publication are international trade and investment, the political economy of globalization and its implication on competitiveness. On these topics, he has published a number of books with international editors as well as several articles in leading academic journals.

Anita Angelovska Bezhoska is Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia. She assumed office of Governor in May 2018, after almost twelve years of work experience in the institution, first as a chief economist, and almost eight years after, as a Vice-Governor in charge of the monetary policy, research and statistics. She is also a Governor for the Republic of North Macedonia on the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and member of the Steering Committee of the Vienna Initiative 2, as representative of the six countries from the Southeast European region that are not yet members of the European Union (EU). By the end of 2019, she was also a member of the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel.

Previously, Angelovska Bezhoska worked at the IMF in Washington DC, USA, as a member of the IMF negotiation missions with member states, and providing technical assistance. She started her career in the Ministry of Finance, first as a head of the project for establishing a treasury system and then, as a state treasurer and state secretary. As a state secretary in the Ministry of Finance, she coordinated processes related to the European integration, budget reforms and negotiations with international financial institutions. Her contribution to the development of public finances was acknowledged with an award granted by the US Embassy in Skopje in 2004. In 2015, Angelovska Bezhoska received her doctorate in economics at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia. She is the author of several expert and research papers. During her career, she has been engaged as a lecturer by many domestic and international educational and scientific institutions.

Leonardo Badea is the Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Romania since October 2019. From June 2017 to October 2019, Mr Badea was the President of the Financial Supervisory Authority in Romania.
With an experience of almost 20 years in the field of economic higher education, Mr Leonardo Badea was vice-rector of the University of Valahia in Târgovişte and Dean of the Faculty of Economics within the same university. Mr Badea was consecutively appointed as senator and deputy in the Romanian Parliament, holding the positions of Secretary of the Committee for Budget – Finance, Banking and Capital Market in the Senate of Romania and of Chairman of the Committee for Budget – Finance in the Chamber of Deputies.

Mr Leonardo Badea holds a PhD in accounting from the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, has graduated the Postdoctoral School of Economics of the Romanian Academy and, as well, the course - Financial Markets by Yale University on Coursera, hold by professor Robert J. Shiller. He is also a member of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) and a Member of the Center for International Development Studies and Economic and Social Movements (CEDIMES).
Mr Leonardo Badea has a sustained activity in the editorial and scientific councils of economic publications, being editor of the scientific council of the ”Journal of Accounting, Finance and Auditing Studies” in Turkey, editor of the scientific council of the ”Valahia Journal of Economics Studies”, CNCSIS B + , member of the editorial board of “Theorethical and Applied Economics”, CNCSIS B + and of the Journal of Financial Studies.

Martin Feldkircher holds the Chair in International Economics at the Vienna School of International Studies (Diplomatische Akademie Wien – DA). He graduated from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna (Economics Program), completed his PhD at the University of Innsbruck and holds a venia docendi from the department of economics at Vienna University of Business and Economics. Before joining the DA in October 2020, he spent twelve years in the Austrian central bank’s Foreign Research Division developing empirical models to analyze Central, Eastern and Southeastern European economies.

Martin Feldkircher’s research interests are in the fields of international macroeconomics, monetary policy and Bayesian econometrics. He has developed large multi-country models to quantify the connectivity between countries and has applied these techniques to estimate spillovers from monetary policy changes in the euro area and the USA. Other research topics cover aspects of the global financial crisis, side effects of monetary policy, forecasting, economic growth and, more generally, comparative economics.

In 2017 and 2019, he was listed as one of the top 100 young economists among all economists working in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland in the prestigious Handelsblatt ranking. He has contributed to numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as: the European Economic Review, the Journal of Banking & Finance, the Journal of International Money and Finance, the Journal of Comparative Economics, Regional Studies, the Journal of Forecasting, the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A.

Marcel Fratzscher is an economist, author and columnist on economic and social issues. He is President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) - one of Europe’s leading independent research institutes and think tanks - and Professor of Macroeconomics at Humboldt-University Berlin. He is member of the High-level Advisory Board of the United Nations on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), Member of the German-French Council of Economic Experts of the German and French Government, Associate Editor of the Journal of International Economics, member of the scientific advisory board of the German Ministry of the Economy and member of the supervisory board of Hertie School of Governance. He engages for the equality of opportunity for disadvantaged children as member of various boards for Kreuzberger Kinderstiftung, Deutschland Rundet Auf and Welthungerhilfe.

His work focuses on macroeconomics, inequality and European integration. He has published three books in German and English since 2014, has a bi-weekly column in Zeit Online (in German) and regularly contributes op-eds in the German and international media, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Project Syndicate. He is one of Germany’s best-published economists and has received several awards for his academic and policy work. He is a European and German citizen.

Linda Goldberg is a Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Linda's main areas of expertise are global banking, international capital flows, and the international roles of currencies.
Linda is the co-chair of the International Banking Research Network, Bank for International Settlements Technical Advisor, CEPR Distinguished Fellow, and an NBER Research Associate. Linda is co-editor of the International Journal of Central Banking and on editorial boards of the Journal of Financial Intermediation and Journal of Financial Services Research. She also is on board of the Central Banking Economic Research Association, the Academic Female Finance Committee of the American Finance Association, and the Vice President of the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni.

Linda previously engaged with the World Economic Forum, including as chair and vice chair of the Council on Global Economic Imbalances. Linda has a PhD in Economics from Princeton University, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Queens College CUNY, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude.

Gottfried Haber holds master’s degrees in economics and business administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, where he also earned his PhD in social and economic sciences summa cum laude in 2000. From 1997 to 2006, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Klagenfurt, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007. Since 2012, he has been Full Professor at the Danube University Krems, lecturing in the fields of economic policy, economic theory, regional economics, banking and financial markets, health economy as well as management in health care. Moreover, from 2000 to 2004, he worked as a lecturer at the Department of Banking at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. In addition to his professional consulting activities for both national and international institutions, he was a Research Fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute dedicated to the analysis of economic activities from 2002 to 2004. Gottfried Haber also served as member of various Supervisory Boards, including at Entwicklungsagentur Kärnten GmbH (EAK), Kärntner Tourismusholding GmbH (KTH), Kärntner Krankenanstaltenbetriebsgesellschaft (KABEG), HYPO NOE Group and HYPO NOE Landesbank. From 2009 to 2015, he was Chairman of the Economic Advisory Board of Carinthia; since 2013, he has served as member of the General Council of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and as President (and Vice President) of the Austrian Fiscal Advisory Council.

Professor Robert Holzmann is Governor of the Austrian Central Bank and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank since September 2019. He is a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and holds honorary positions at the South-Western University in Economics and Finance, Chengdu; University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur and University of New South Wales, Sydney. In addition to academic positions in Austria and Germany, he worked at the OECD and at the IMF as a senior economist. At the World Bank he led the pension strategy work as Sector Director of the Social Protection & Labor Department. Professor Holzmann also served internationally as senior advisor on pensions, financial literacy & education, labor market and migration issues. He has published extensively on financial, fiscal and social policy issues. He has travelled to over 90 countries in the world.

Madis Müller leads Eesti Pank and is a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, the highest decision-making body of the ECB that among other decisions sets monetary policy for the euro area. Madis Müller became Governor of Eesti Pank in June 2019, when he took over from Ardo Hansson. The Governor’s term of office is for seven years. Madis Müller was previously Deputy Governor of Eesti Pank, a portfolio manager for equity investments at International Finance Corporation (IFC), an advisor to the Executive Director of the Nordic-Baltic constituency at the World Bank, and an economic policy adviser to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Estonia. Mr. Müller holds a Master’s in Finance degree from George Washington University in the USA and a bachelor’s degree in banking and finance from Estonian Business School. He is also a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and FRM (Financial Risk Manager) charterholder.

Cristian Popa is Senior Advisor to the Vienna Initiative Steering Committee since January 2020. He was Vice-President and member of the Management Committee of the EIB from March 1 to July 31, 2016. His oversight responsibilities in this position included evaluation (starting with the first Investment Plan for Europe and complemented by a mid-2019 assessment of the IPE as independent high-level EC expert), workstreams relating to the macroeconomic outlook, monetary policy and stress-testing of the EIB portfolio; relations with the ECB, ESRB, BIS, WTO, OECD and think tanks; and financing operations in Romania, Bulgaria, FYROM and EFTA countries.

He previously was Deputy Governor of the NBR and member of the Board of Directors, Dec.1998 to Oct. 2014. In this capacity, he oversaw the design and implementation of the inflation targeting framework and coordinated monetary policy, research, econometric modeling/forecasting, EU affairs, international relations, and financial stability, along with institutional relations with private sector large portfolio clients, rating agencies, investment banks and funds. Dr. Popa joined the NBR in 1998 as Senior Advisor to the Governor and Chief Economist. His career was previously in research and government (the latter as Governmental Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Reform and Director of the Macroeconomic Policy Coordination and Financial Markets Dept., Government of Romania, 1993-4). Dr. Popa was a Fulbright Fellow with Harvard University, ACE-PHARE Visiting Fellow with NIESR, and Visiting Scholar with the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, with high subsequent visibility as international lecturer and speaker. He was also key project expert on the design, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for setting up a national development bank in Romania (2018).

Doris Ritzberger-Grünwald has been Director of the Economic Analysis and Research Department at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) since 2013. Prior to that, she served as Head (and Deputy) of the OeNB’s Foreign Research Division. She lectured at the Johannes Kepler University Linz and the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She holds master’s degrees in macroeconomics as well as in social and economic sciences, earned her doctoral degree in social and economic sciences at the University of Vienna, and was research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna. Since 2000, she has been a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the European Central Bank (ECB) and acceded to the Executive Board of the Joint Vienna Institute in 2001. Her main areas of research cover monetary policy, inflation, economic growth as well as EU and EMU enlargement, with a special focus on Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries.

Robert Stehrer is Scientific Director at wiiw. His expertise covers a broad area of economic research, ranging from issues of international integration, trade and technological development to labour markets and applied econometrics. His recent work has focused on the analysis and effects of internationalisation of production and value-added trade on economic performance and labour markets. He has published in leading journals in these fields and has been working on numerous projects funded by European Research Framework Programmes, notably in EU KLEMS (FP6), WIOD, SPINTAN and PRONTO (all FP7), as well as for international and national clients, such as the European Commission, the Joint Research Council, the European Central Bank and OECD. He studied economics at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, and sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna and is lecturer of economics at the University of Vienna.

Livio Stracca is the Deputy Director General International and European Relations at the European Central Bank and an adjunct Professor at the University of Frankfurt J.-W. Goethe.
He has a PhD in Economics and a postgraduate degree in European Union Law. His research interests are mainly in international macroeconomics and monetary economics.

Adam Tooze – prize-winning historian, writer and economic commentator, Adam Tooze combines deep historical expertise with up to date economic analysis to answer questions about current and future political power and economical shifts that could be used to navigate in our dynamic contemporary world. Adam has advised governments and ministries and toured the world as a lecturer. Professor Tooze teaches and researches widely in the fields of twentieth-century and contemporary history with a special focus on the history of economics and a range of themes in political, intellectual and military history, across a canvas stretching from Europe to the Atlantic. He is currently working on the history of the climate crisis.
Professor Tooze’s book, Crashed: How A Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, was called, according to the Financial Times, “monumental narrative history” of the financial crisis of 2008 and its global aftermath. The Observer declared it the most significant effort to date to comprehensively analyse the impact of the financial crisis not just on the United States and Europe, but in Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia as well. Crashed is the fourth in a quartet of books exploring trans-Atlantic economics and power over the course of the American century. Statistics and the German State 1900-1945: the Making of Modern Economic Knowledge explored how economic experts laid the foundations of our current macroeconomic knowledge and assisted in the management of Hitler’s war machine. 

Tooze teaches at Columbia University where he is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History and the Director of the European Institute. Adam previously taught at the University of Cambridge and at Yale University, where he was the Barton M. Biggs Professor of History and the Director of International Security Studies. Adam served as Thomas Hawkins Johnson Visiting Professor in Military History at West Point. He has written for the Financial Times, the New York Times, Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph, the Observer, Prospect Magazine, the TLS, the LRB, the New left Review and Dissent, the WSJ, the New York Review of Books, Die Zeit, Spiegel, TAZ, and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

In 2009, Tooze was appointed to the academic panel charged by the Bundesfinanzministerium (Federal Finance Ministry) with writing the Ministry’s history in the period of the Third Reich. He has responsibility for the volume dealing with public debt. Adam won the Leverhulme prize fellowship, the H-Soz-Kult Historisches Buch Prize, the Longman History Today Prize, the Wolfson Prize and the LA Times History Prize for his books on history Apart from English he is bilingual in German and has functional French.

Petia Topalova is Deputy Chief of the Emerging Economies Unit and the mission chief for the Slovak Republic in the European Department of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that, she worked in the Research, and Asia and Pacific Department of the IMF, and was an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. Her research is in the areas of economic development and international trade.

Prof. Dr. Reinhilde Veugelers is a full professor at KULeuven (BE) at the Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation.  She is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel since 2009 and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics since 2020. She is also a CEPR Research Fellow, a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and of the Academia Europeana. From 2004-2008, she was on academic leave, as advisor at the European Commission (BEPA Bureau of European Policy Analysis). She served on the ERC Scientific Council from 2012-2018 and on the EU-RISE Expert Group advising the commissioner for Research. She is a member of VARIO, the expert group advising the Flemish minister for Innovation. She is currently a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of the journal Science and a co-PI on the Science of Science Funding Initiative at NBER. 

With her research concentrated in the fields of industrial organisation, international economics and strategy, innovation and science, she has authored numerous well cited publications in leading international journals. Specific recent topics include novelty in technology development, international technology transfers through MNEs, global innovation value chains, young innovative companies, innovation for climate change, industry science links and their impact on firm’s innovative productivity, evaluation of research & innovation policy, explaining scientific productivity, researchers’ international mobility, novel scientific research.

Boris Vujčić holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Zagreb. He has also received diplomas in Economics from the Montpellier University (France) and was a pre-doctoral PhD Fulbright student at the Michigan State University. He joined the Croatian National Bank in 1997 and was Director of the Research Department for three years before becoming Deputy Governor in 2000, a position to which he was re-appointed in 2006.

In July 2012, Mr Vujčić became Governor of the Croatian National Bank for a six-year term of office and was re-appointed for another six-year term of office in July 2018. Mr Vujčić has been a Deputy Chief Negotiator in Republic of Croatia’s negotiations with the European Union 2005-2012. He was also a member of the Global Development Network (GDN) Board in the same period, 2005-2012. He is also a Member of the Steering Committee of the ESRB, since 2016, a Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Vienna Initiative, since 2016, and a Member of the General Council of the ECB, since 2013.