Ms. Orsalia Kalantzopoulos assumed her position as Director for Central, South-central Europe and the Baltic States Country Unit on January 1st, 2008

 

Orsalia Kalantzopoulos

Ms. Orsalia Kalantzopoulos, a Greek national, assumed her position as Director for Central, South-central Europe and the Baltic States effective January 1st, 2008. Until December 2007, Ms. Kalantzopoulos was the Country Director and Regional Coordinator for Southeast Europe, where she was in charge of the Bank's country relations and policy dialogue, programs and projects in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo and coordinated the Bank's Southeast Europe regional agenda with the European Commission. During Ms. Kalantzopoulos's five year tenure in Southeast Europe, the Bank developed effective programs across countries and sectors and implemented regional programs in environment, energy, communicable diseases, education, secondary roads, railroads and climate adaptation.

Ms. Kalantzopoulos started her career at the World Bank in 1984 as an Economist in the Trade Policy Division of the Development Research Department and in 1985 was selected as a member of the 1986 World Development Report core team on Trade and Pricing in Agriculture. Between 1986 and 1993, Ms. Kalantzopoulos had successive assignments as Sector Economist and Senior Country Economist for countries in Francophone Africa and South Asia Regions. In May 1993, Ms. Kalantzopoulos was selected as Assistant to the Managing Directors in the Executive Offices and following the 1995 Presidential transition she was promoted to Advisor to the Managing Director for Operations and Strategy. In 1997, Ms. Kalantzopoulos was selected as Country Director for the Caribbean, in the Latin America and Caribbean Region. During her five year tenure in the Caribbean, Ms. Kalantzopoulos re-established the country dialogue and lending with all Caribbean client countries and initiated the Caribbean Regional Disaster Mitigation Program supported by an innovative multi-country lending instrument -- the horizontal Adjustable Program Loan, now used across the Bank.

Ms. Kalantzopoulos holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where under Nobel Laureate Professor Lawrence R. Klein she wrote a Dissertation on International Trade and Econometrics applied to the multi-country Project Link. Prior to joining the Bank, Ms. Kalantzopoulos was a fellow in the Economics Research Unit at the University of Pennsylvania, an economist at the United Nations Secretariat and a Senior Economist with General Motors Corporation. Ms. Kalantzopoulos is fluent in English, French, Greek and Spanish.

Ms. Kalantzopoulos is married to Christos Mastroyannis MD, and she has two sons -- Alexander and Philippe.