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Thomas Mirow appointed EBRD President
The Board of Governors of the EBRD named Thomas Mirow of Germany as the Bank’s fifth president, replacing Jean Lemierre who is stepping down at the end of two four-year terms.
Mr Mirow is currently State Secretary at the German Finance Ministry, where his responsibilities include national and international financial market policies and the activities of international financial institutions and multilateral development banks.
He assumes the presidency as the Bank is increasingly shifting the focus of its activities further east and south-east in line with the requirements of its countries of operations.
Speaking after the Governors’ decision, Mr Mirow said: “I am greatly honoured to be joining an institution that has achieved so much in so few years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The region where the Bank works still faces many challenges and I am convinced that the EBRD has the skills, the experience and the determination to help the region meet those challenges.”
Mr Mirow, 55, was born in Paris. After graduating from the University of Bonn in 1975, he worked as the assistant and then as chef de cabinet to former German Chancellor Willy Brandt, then Chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic party.
After serving as Director of the Press Office of the city-state of Hamburg, Mr Mirow held several senior positions within the Hamburg administration, where, between 1997 and 2001, he was state minister for economics. He also held several senior management and advisory positions in the private sector.
He was Director General for Economic Policy in the Federal Chancellery in 2005 and appointed State Secretary at the Federal Finance Ministry in November 2005.
Mr Mirow succeeds Mr Lemierre, of France, on 3 July, 2008, becoming the second German President in the 17-year history of the EBRD after current German President Horst Koehler who led the Bank between 1998 and 2000.
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