Speaker

Marcin Piatkowski is a global authority on Poland’s economic success and on what other countries can learn from it. He combines academic scholarship with hands-on policy experience. He is a Professor of Economics at Kozminski University in Warsaw, the highest-ranked business school in Central and Eastern Europe, and a visiting professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. As Lead Economist at the World Bank, he advised almost twenty governments, including those of China and India, on private-sector development, innovation, and the business environment. Before that, he was Chief Economist and Managing Director of PKO BP, the largest bank in Central and Eastern Europe. Earlier in his career, he worked as an economist in the IMF’s European Department, advised an IMF Executive Director, and served as Advisor to Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. A pre- and postdoctoral scholar at Harvard University, he holds a Ph.D. and habilitation in economics from Kozminski University. His research focuses on economic development, innovation, and competitiveness. His bestselling book, Europe’s Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland, published by Oxford University Press in 2018 (second edition, 2025), was reviewed in the Financial Times, endorsed by Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu and other leading economists, and has won multiple awards, including the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Best Book in Economics prize. His next book, Two Roads to Riches: Why Poland’s Growth Model Is Easier to Replicate than South Korea’s, is forthcoming. He has lectured at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford;at the IMF, OECD, EBRD, and World Bank;and at global conferences, including the World Economic Forum in Davos.