Biography | Kristalina Georgieva — An Environmental Economist Arrives at 1818 H Street

In 1993 Georgieva left the Sofia faculty and joined the World Bank as an environmental economist. The address on the offer was the one the Bank has used since 1946: 1818 H Street NW, the Main Complex in Foggy Bottom. The official IMF biography and the Bank's own appointment records both date the start to 1993. The doctorate and the LSE year were the credentials. The job was the turn. She stayed 17 years on the first tour. The titles stacked: environment and social development in East Asia and the Pacific; director and resident representative for the Russian Federation; director for sustainable development; then vice president and corporate secretary from March 2008. Corporate secretary is the room between management, the Board, and the shareholder governments. It is not a field post. It is how a technical hire learns the institution as a political machine. She left in 2010 for Brussels. She came back on 2 January 2017 as the first chief executive officer of IBRD and IDA, a post created by President Jim Yong Kim. The appointment press release is dated 28 October 2016. From 1 February to 8 April 2019 she served as interim president of the World Bank Group. That is the last Bank title before the Fund. A visitor standing on H Street sees a mid-century complex that has been rebuilt in pieces. The north entrance still reads 1818. The walk to the IMF building next door is the geography of the next chapter. Photo: Jaakko H., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Portrait: World Bank Group / Grant Ellis, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.