2024 ECB Forum – Speakers

Programme and live webcast

Prior to joining HEC Paris, Mr Bergeaud worked in the Research Directorate of the Banque de France for five years.

Mr Bergeaud is currently also a research associate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, and the Farhi Innovation Lab at the Collège de France. In recognition of his research work, he was one of four nominees for the Best Young Economist Award 2024, a prize organised by the Cercle des Économistes in collaboration with the editorial staff of Le Monde.

His research investigates the determinants of long-term growth, with a particular focus on the role of innovation and public policies. In addition, he has extensively explored the underlying reasons for the economic slowdown in Europe and the United States, and measured the impact of technological change on the labour market and inequality. His work has been published in various prestigious journals, including The American Economic Review, The Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Journal of the European Economic Association.

Mr Bergeaud studied at École Polytechnique and has a PhD from the Paris School of Economics.

Mr Borio first joined the Bank for International Settlements in 1987 and has held various positions in the Monetary and Economic Department, including Deputy Head of Department and Director of Research and Statistics, as well as Head of Secretariat for the Committee on the Global Financial System and for the Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee (now the Markets Committee).

From 1985 to 1987 he worked as an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development, working in the Country Studies Branch of the Economics and Statistics Department. Prior to that, he was a lecturer and research fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.

Mr Borio also studied at Oxford University, obtaining a DPhil and an MPhil in economics, and a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy and economics.

Mr Campos Neto has extensive professional experience in the financial sector. Over the past two decades, he has held positions and leadership roles in various financial institutions, both in Brazil and abroad, such as Banco Bozano Simonsen, Claritas, B3 and Santander, where he headed up the Global Treasury for the Americas department.

Prior to joining the Banco Central do Brasil, he launched the Agenda BC#, with a view to fostering competition, inclusion, transparency, education and sustainability in the national financial system. This strategic work agenda has earned the Banco Central do Brasil a number of major national and international awards, in particular because it implemented Pix, an instant payment scheme recognised as a model of innovation and for its contribution to promoting financial inclusion, competition and transparency.

In 2021 Mr Campos Neto received the Central Banker of the Year award from Financial Times magazine The Banker, and in 2022 and 2023 he was named Central Bank Governor of the Year by LatinFinance. In 2024, under his leadership, the Banco Central do Brasil was designated Central Bank of the Year by Central Banking.

Mr Campos Neto has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in economics from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Before joining the ECB, Mr Cipollone was Deputy Governor of the Banca d’Italia and a member of the Board of IVASS, Italy’s Institute for the Supervision of Insurance. He was also a member of the Coordination Group for the G20 cross-border payments programme at the Bank for International Settlements. Previously he served as an executive director at the World Bank Group. 

Mr Cipollone is the author of several books and his papers have been published in various international journals, including such as The American Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association and Journal of Policy Modeling.

He graduated with honours in economics from the Sapienza University of Rome and went on to obtain a master’s degree in economics from Stanford University. He was also a visiting scholar at the economics department of the University of California, Berkeley.

He was Spanish Minister of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (2016-18) and Minister of Economy and Competitiveness (2011-16). He served as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and a member of the Economic and Financial Committee of the EU (2002-04). Prior to that, he was Secretary General for Economic and Competition Policy (2000-02) and Director General (1996-2000).

Mr de Guindos was Director of IE Business School in Madrid and the PricewaterhouseCoopers/IE Center for the Finance Sector (2010-11). He was previously Head of Financial Services at PwC (2008-09). He was Chief Executive Officer Iberia at Lehman Brothers and Chief Executive Officer at Nomura Securities (2006-08).

He received a BSc in economics with honours from CUNEF Universidad in Spain in 1982 and qualified as State Economist and Trade Expert in 1984.

She is known for her extensive expertise in financial markets and the global economy, as well as regular news-making interviews with some of the most prominent names in the financial world, including Phil Knight, Janet Yellen and Christine Lagarde.

Ms Eisen has also hosted CNBC’s “Closing Bell”, “Power Lunch” and “Worldwide Exchange”, and reported on “Inside Track: The Business of Formula 1” – a one-hour documentary that explores what is fuelling the popularity of the world’s most elite motorsports league, and who is profiting from it. She joined CNBC in December 2013 as a correspondent, focusing on the global consumer.

Before starting at CNBC, Ms Eisen was a co-anchor of “Bloomberg Surveillance”, as well as a correspondent for Bloomberg Television, where she covered global macroeconomics, policy and business. During that time, she reported on the European debt crisis, the Japanese tsunami of March 2011 and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Ms Eisen also hosted the Bloomberg Radio programme “On the Economy”.

She is the editor of “Currencies After the Crash: The Uncertain Future of the Global Paper-Based Currency System”, which was published by McGraw-Hill in January 2013.

She holds a master’s degree in broadcast journalism with a concentration in business reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

In his capacity as Executive Board member, Mr Elderson oversees the ECB’s Directorate General Legal Services.

He also co-chairs the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risks of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Mr Elderson previously served as Executive Director of Banking Supervision at De Nederlandsche Bank, where he had held several senior positions prior to joining the Governing Board in 2011. He first took up a position at the national central bank in 1999 and before that had worked as a lawyer specialising in EU competition law.

Throughout his career, Mr Elderson has stressed the importance of climate and environment-related considerations for the financial sector, as well as for supervisors and central banks. In 2016 he founded De Nederlandsche Bank’s Sustainable Finance Platform, which he also chaired until 2020, and from 2018 to 2022 he served as the first Chair of the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a network he helped to set up and expand.

Mr Elderson graduated in Dutch law at the University of Amsterdam in 1994 and obtained an LLM degree at Columbia Law School, New York, in 1995. He also took various courses at the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Ms Forbes has regularly switched between serving in academia and holding senior policy positions: from 2014 to 2017 she was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England, and prior to that a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US Department of the Treasury. In 2019 Ms Forbes was made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 

She is currently convener of the Bellagio Group, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Centre for Economic Policy Research, and a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group and Council on Foreign Relations. She also holds several advisory positions, including at the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund.

Her academic research addresses policy-related questions in international macroeconomics, including on monetary policy, macroprudential tools, capital flows, exchange rates, inflation and financial contagion. She has won numerous teaching awards and teaches one of the most popular classes at the Sloan School of Management.

Ms Forbes obtained her PhD in Economics from MIT and graduated with highest honours from Williams College.

Prior to assuming his current role, Mr Hatzius was Head of Global Economics and Markets Research. He joined the Goldman Sachs Frankfurt office in 1997 and transferred to the New York office in 1999. He was appointed Managing Director in 2004 and Partner in 2008. 

Before joining Goldman Sachs, Mr Hatzius was a research officer at the London School of Economics. For the past decade he has been ranked No 1 global economist in Institutional Investor’s Global Fixed-Income Research Team, either in the global or US category. He is also a member of the economic advisory panels of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Congressional Budget Office. 

Mr Hatzius obtained earned a DPhil in economics from Oxford University, as well as degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Mr Iacoviello is also an editor of Review of Economic Dynamics, an associate editor of Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and a member of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Research Policy Network on Geoeconomics. In the past, he served as a consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the International Monetary Fund, the ECB and the Bank of Canada.

Mr Iacoviello’s research interests are in macroeconomics, monetary economics and international finance, with a focus on inflation and monetary policy, geopolitical risks, the implications of trade uncertainty, the solution and estimation of models with occasionally binding constraints, and the linkages between housing prices and business cycles. His work has been published in leading economics journals, including The American Economic Review, Journal of Monetary Economics, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, The Review of Financial Studies, International Economic Review and Review of Economic Dynamics. It has also been featured in major media, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Economist and Forbes.

Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Board, Mr Iacoviello was a professor of economics at Boston College from 2002 to 2009. He has also taught at Georgetown University, the Catholic University of Milan, the University of Milan and DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research).

Mr Iacoviello grew up in Solofra, Italy. He has an bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, a PhD in economic theory and institutions from the University of Bologna, and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Ms Javorcik is currently on leave from Oxford University, where she is the first woman to hold a Statutory Professorship in economics. She is also a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and the Director of the International Trade and Regional Economics Programme at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London, as well as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the ifo Institute (University of Munich) and of the Executive and Supervisory Committee at CERGE-EI in Prague. Before taking up her position at Oxford University, she worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where she focused on research, lending operations and policy advice. 

She has a PhD in economics from Yale and a bachelor’s degree in economics with highest honours from the University of Rochester.

She has worked at the Financial Times since 2011, covering economics and finance from Washington, London and Frankfurt, and holds a degree in philosophy and economics from the London School of Economics.

Her areas of interest include monetary policy, trade, financial markets and political economy.

Within the Environment Directorate, Ms Karousakis leads the Biodiversity Programme, which focuses on the economics and policy of biodiversity, covering issues such as the effective design of policy instruments, and biodiversity finance and mainstreaming. She has also been lead author of numerous reports, including for the G7. Ms Karousakis joined the OECD in 2006, initially working on climate change for two years within Climate Change Expert Group led by the OECD and the International Energy Agency. Before that, she also worked on climate change issues at the US Environmental Protection Agency.  

An environmental economist by training, Ms Karousakis has a PhD from University College London and a master’s degree from Duke University.

Before taking up his current role, Mr Kganyago served as Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank. In this role he had oversight of a wide range of areas, including research, financial stability, banking supervision, financial regulatory reform and financial surveillance, with responsibility for the regulation of cross-border flows, risk management and compliance, and the South African Reserve Bank College (now known as the South African Reserve Bank Academy).

Mr Kganyago has more than 20 years of experience in formulating and implementing public policy. He has far-reaching experience in macroeconomic policy, financial sector policy, public finance, international finance, public debt management and financial markets. As Director General of the National Treasury, he successfully steered several public finance and financial market reforms, and played a leading role in the fundamental reform of the microstructure of domestic bond markets, including reforms to the auction system and the introduction of new financial instruments, such as inflation-linked bonds, buy-backs, switches, and separate trading of registered interest and principal of securities. In addition, during his time at the National Treasury, a fundamental reform in the management of the national debt portfolio was completed.

He has led South Africa’s technical team attending various G20 Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors meetings and summits, including the inaugural summit in 2008, and has chaired the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Development Committee Deputies meeting and the G20 Working Group on IMF Governance Reform. He has also served as Vice-Chair of the Financial Stability Board’s Standing Committee on Standards Implementation.

Mr Kganyago chairs the Committee of Central Bank Governors of the Southern African Development Community and is the Co-Chair of the Financial Stability Board’s Central Bank Governance Group and its Regional Consultative Group for Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also chaired the Financial Stability Board’s Standing Committee on Standards Implementation, and served as Chair of the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee from January 2018 to January 2021.

He holds a master’s degree in development economics from the University of London and a bachelor’s degree in accounting and economics from the University of South Africa.

Mr Knot is also a member of the Governing Council and General Council of the ECB, as well as a member of the General Board of the European Systemic Risk Board, a member of the International Monetary Fund’s Board of Governors and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements.

Alongside these positions, Mr Knot holds a number of academic posts: in 2005 he became Professor of Economics of Central Banking at the University of Groningen, and in 2015 he was appointed as an honorary professor of monetary stability in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Amsterdam. He has also published various articles on monetary and financial economics in leading Dutch and international journals. Mr Knot is also a member of the Group of Thirty, a global body of economic and financial leaders from the public and private sectors and academia.

Before taking on the presidency of De Nederlandsche Bank, Mr Knot was Deputy Treasurer-General and Director of Financial Markets at the Dutch Ministry of Finance (2009-11). Prior to that he had worked at the central bank for almost 12 years in several positions, including Senior Economist in the Monetary and Economic Policy Department and Director of the Supervisory Policy Division. He was also previously employed by the former Pensions and Insurance Supervisory Board of the Netherlands (2003-04) and the International Monetary Fund (1998-99).

Mr Knot graduated with honours in economics from the University of Groningen in 1991 and went on to obtain a PhD in economics in 1995.

Her research leverages large micro datasets to better understand questions relating to household, behavioural and real-estate finance. A substantial body of her work explores the role of social networks in finance and economics, how individuals form expectations, and the interactions between the economy and the natural world. 

Prior to joining New York University, she earned a PhD in economics at Stanford University and spent a year as a Fulbright visiting scholar in the economics department at the University of California, Berkeley. Ms Kuchler completed her undergraduate studies with a diploma in business economics at the University of Mannheim.

Between 2011 and 2019 she served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that she served as French Minister of Economy and Finance from 2007 to 2011, having been Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007. A lawyer by background, she practised for 20 years with international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became Global Chair in 1999. She was the first woman to hold each of these positions.

In 2022 President Lagarde was ranked the second most influential woman in the world by Forbes. She has also been recognised by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She was named Officer in the French Order of the Legion of Honor in April 2012 and Commander in the National Order of Merit in May 2021.

Before joining the ECB, he was Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. He has also chaired the Advisory Scientific Committee and Advisory Technical Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board and was Whately Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College Dublin. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, he was awarded a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1995 and was Assistant Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Columbia University from 1995 to 1997, before returning to Dublin. In 2001 he was the inaugural recipient of the Germán Bernácer Prize for outstanding contributions to European monetary economics.

She serves on several academic advisory boards, the Board of Directors of The Review of Economic Studies, and the editorial boards of The Review of Economic Studies and American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. She was previously a member of the editorial board of Journal of International Economics. She is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Centre for Economic Performance, the International Growth Centre and CESifo. She has also worked as an external consultant at the Bank of England and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Ms Manova is a recipient of the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Economics, a five-year €2.4 million European Research Council Advanced Grant, a five-year €1.5 million European Research Council Consolidator Grant, a three-year GBP 750,000 Economic and Social Research Council Governance after Brexit grant, and the Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Her research explores three themes in international economics: (i) global value chains and firm production networks; (ii) firm productivity, innovation, and management practices; and (iii) financial frictions in international trade and investment. Her work has been published in academic journals and policy forums such as The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of International Economics and VoxEU. 

Ms Manova has expertise on Europe, China and the Americas, and she frequently speaks at academic conferences and policy events at institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the ECB, the US Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England. She also teaches short courses at universities across Europe and Asia and training at governmental institutions.

She studied at Harvard University and has taught at the Universities of Stanford, Princeton and Oxford.

Ms Nechio started her career at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in July 2009, where she held several positions in the Economic Research Department.

From July 2019 to May 2021 she served as Deputy Governor of the Banco Central do Brasil. In that role, she oversaw the central bank's International Research Department and all areas relating to risk management, while also managing the relationships between the Banco Central do Brasil and foreign institutions. She was a permanent voting member of the Banco Central do Brasil’s Board of Directors, with shared decision-making responsibilities for monetary policy and financial stability, and was jointly responsible for setting the institution's strategic direction. In addition, Ms Nechio spearheaded the Banco Central do Brasil’s sustainability agenda, with the aim of promoting a greener financial system and mitigating social, environmental and climate-related risks.

Her main research interests are in the areas of international finance and monetary macroeconomics, with a focus on exchange rates, price setting, demographics and monetary policy. She has published articles in leading academic journals, such as The American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics and Journal of the European Economic Association.

Ms Nechio completed her PhD and a master's degree at Princeton University. In addition, she holds master's and bachelor's degrees in economics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Ms Nechio also worked as a special-term lecturer at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr Powell also serves as Chair of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve’s principal monetary policymaking body. He has served as a member of the Board of Governors since taking office in May 2012 to fill an unexpired term. He was reappointed to the Board in June 2014 for a term ending in January 2028.

Prior to his appointment to the Board, Mr Powell was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he focused on federal and state fiscal issues. From 1997 to 2005 he was a partner at The Carlyle Group.

Mr Powell served as Assistant Secretary and Under Secretary of the US Treasury under President George H.W. Bush, with responsibility for policy on financial institutions, the Treasury debt market and related areas. Before joining the Administration, he worked as a lawyer and investment banker in New York City.

In addition to his positions on corporate boards, Mr Powell has served on the boards of various charitable and educational institutions, including the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University and The Nature Conservancy of Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

Mr Powell was born in February 1953 in Washington, D.C. He received an AB in politics from Princeton University in 1975 and earned a law degree from Georgetown University in 1979. While at Georgetown, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Journal.

He is married with three children.

Mr Primiceri is also a fellow of the Econometric Society, a fellow of the International Association for Applied Econometrics, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. He is a former Sloan Research Fellow, and has served as a member of the Centre for Economic Policy Research's Euro Area Business Cycle Dating Committee and as Co-Editor of American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

Mr Primiceri’s research interests include macroeconomics and applied time-series econometrics. His work is primarily focused on understanding the causes and propagation mechanisms of macroeconomic fluctuations, the effects of monetary policy on business cycles, and the role of household debt and house prices in macroeconomic dynamics. His research has been published in leading journals such as The American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, The Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Review of Economic Studies.

He received his PhD from Princeton University in 2004.

Ms Romei has also held other academic positions, including Max Weber Fellow and Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (2014-15), and as an assistant professor at the Stockholm School of Economics. In addition, she is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a member of the editorial board of Review of Economic Studies, as well as a regular research visitor at the ECB and an external consultant for the Bank of England. 

Ms Romei’s research interests lie in the areas of macroeconomics, monetary economics and international macroeconomics. In 2022 she was awarded a European Research Council/UK Research and Innovation starting grant for a research project on “Heterogeneous agents in heterogeneous countries”. Her research on the global effects of macroprudential policies, debt deleveraging and household heterogeneity in open economies has been published in The American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, and Journal of International Economics.

Ms Romei received a PhD in economics from Luiss University in 2014.

Before joining Columbia, Ms Schmitt-Grohé held positions at Duke University, Rutgers University and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She is a research affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as the current chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research) and a member of the Academic Advisory Council at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. 

In 2004 Ms Schmitt-Grohé was awarded the Germán Bernácer Prize for her contributions to the development and application of tools for analysing macroeconomic stabilisation policies.

Her research focuses on understanding the sources and propagation of macroeconomic shocks within and across countries, and on the design of monetary and fiscal policies. She co-authored the 2017 graduate text “Open Economy Macroeconomics” (with Martín Uribe) and the 2022 undergraduate text “International Macroeconomics: A Modern Approach” (with Martín Uribe and Michael Woodford), both published by Princeton University Press.

Ms Schmitt-Grohé obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1994.

She is on leave from the University of Bonn, where she was Professor of Financial Economics. Before joining the ECB she was a member of the German Council of Economic Experts and Co-Chair of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts. Ms Schnabel studied economics at the universities of Mannheim, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and UC Berkeley, and received her PhD in economics from the University of Mannheim.

He is also a fellow of the German Research Foundation (DFG)'s Cluster of Excellence initiative (ECONtribute), and a full member of Academia Europea and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has conducted research at a wide range of international institutions, including New York University, the University of Cambridge, Freie Universität Berlin and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

His research interests include topics such as financial markets and asset prices, issues in monetary macroeconomics, and the causes of financial crises and economic inequality. He regularly advises central banks, finance ministries, investors and international organisations.

Prior to his appointment at the Kiel Institute, he was a professor of macroeconomics at the University of Bonn, where he was also Director of the MacroFinance Lab. Mr Schularick is a recipient of the 2022 Leibniz Prize awarded by the DFG, and in 2018 he received the Verein für Socialpolitik's Gossen Prize. He is also Editor of the prestigious journal Economic Policy.

Mr Surico specialises in macroeconomics and has published extensively in leading international academic journals on a wide range of topics, including inflation, monetary policy, tax policy, housing and mortgage markets. 

He holds a PhD from Bocconi University.

Before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2018, Mr Williams was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, an institution which he first joined in 2002 and where he subsequently served as Director of Research. He began his career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and has also served in roles on the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. 

He has produced seminal research on critical monetary policy issues, such as the zero lower bound and the neutral rate of interest, and he continues to actively research topics such as monetary policy and uncertainty, as well as macroeconomics more broadly.

Mr Williams holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.