Mario CENTENO

Biographie

Mário Centeno is the Governor of Banco de Portugal.

He received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 2000. He was Portugal’s Minister of Finance from 2015 to 2020 and Eurogroup’s President from 2018 to 2020.

His educational background includes a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics and an Economics Degree from the Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.

During his term as Minister of Finance, Portugal registered its first public accounts surplus during the current democratic period.

As President of the Eurogroup, he led the group of Euro Area Finance Ministers to the completion of important institutional features of the Area. In that capacity, he was appointed President-Elect of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism and participated, as an observer, in the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. He also chaired the Board of Governors of the European Investment Bank (2017-18).

He represented the Euro Area at the G7 Finance Ministers group and at the G4 Finance Ministers group. He was also a member of the Five Presidents of the European Union group, where he took part in setting an European strategy to deal with the health and economic crisis in 2020. Over the past two and a half years, he participated in European Council meetings and Euro Summits, together with leaders from EU Member States.