Official Candidate for UN Secretary-General

Nominated by the Government of Bulgaria

September 29, 2016

​

Kristalina Ivanova Georgieva currently serves as the European Union Commission Vice-President for Budget and Human Resources. In this role since 2014, Ms. Georgieva negotiates and manages the EU budget, ensuring that it is invested in the best way to serve EU citizens. She protects the EU budget from fraud and corruption and develops a corporate talent‑management policy in the Commission, an organization with more than 33,000 staff members. Prior to this promotion, she served the EU as the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response since her appointment in February 2010.

​

She earned an MA in Political Economy and Sociology from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria. She completed post-graduate research and studies in natural resource economics and environmental policy at the London School of Economics and also studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

​

Known as a lecturer on economies in transition, Ms. Georgieva began her career in the early 1990s as an economic consultant and academic lecturer before joining the international economic and finance sector in 1993.

She served as Senior Environmental Economist in the Environment Division for Europe and Central Asia under the World Bank Group and continued to advance at the World Bank, becoming Vice President and Corporate Secretary for the Group.  Ms. Georgieva has additionally served on the World Bank’s Board of Trustees.

​

Ms. Georgieva was named both “European of the Year” and “EU Commissioner of the Year” in 2010 in acknowledgement of her outstanding work following the Haiti earthquake and the floods in Pakistan.

​

When elected as a Commissioner to the EU, the European Commission President José Manual Barroso praised Georgieva when announcing his endorsement, stating that “Mrs. Georgieva has solid international experience and knowledge which is going to contribute significantly to her capacity as EU Commissioner.”

​

While serving as EU Commissioner in response to Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, she made sure that the EU became the primary humanitarian donor to the struggling nation.