Biography
Yannis Stournaras was born in Athens on 10 December 1956. He graduated from Filothei High School in 1974 and from the Department of Economics, University of Athens in 1978. He obtained his post-graduate degrees (MPhil 1980, DPhil 1982) from Oxford University, where he also worked from 1982 to 1986 as a Research Fellow and Lecturer at St. Catherine’s College and as Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Today, he is Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, University of Athens.
Following his return to Greece, he worked as a Special Advisor to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (1986-1989) on public enterprises and incomes policy issues, and to the Bank of Greece (1989-1994) on monetary policy issues. From 1994 to July 2000, he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. In this capacity, he was involved in the design of macroeconomic and structural policies, represented the Ministry in the Monetary Committee of the European Union, took part in the negotiations for the entry of Greece in Economic and Monetary Union and was responsible for the annual consultations with the IMF, the European Commission and the OECD.
He was Vice Chairman of the Public Gas Corporation (1994-1997) and a Board member of the Public Debt Management Office (1998-July 2000). From 2000 to 2004, he was Chairman and CEO of Emporiki Bank and Vice Chairman of the Hellenic Bank Association. From 2005 to August 2008, he was managing director of Kappa Securities. He served as Director General of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) (September 2009-June 2012) and as Minister of Development, Competitiveness and Shipping in the caretaker government (May-June 2012).
From July 2012 to June 2014, he served as Minister of Finance.