Contributor(s): Kristalina Georgieva | Kristalina Georgieva is European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. Before joining the European Commission in February 2010, she held various positions at the World Bank. She started working there in 1993, initially as Environmental Economist, then Senior Environmental Economist. She continued as Sector Manager on Environment for the East Asia and Pacific Region, and later became the Director in charge of World Bank environmental strategy, policies and lending. In 2004 her work took me to Moscow, where she was World Bank Director for the Russian Federation, responsible for a large portfolio of World Bank projects in tax administration, customs, education, health, environment and regional development. In 2007-2008 she held the position of Director for Sustainable Development and, finally was appointed Vice President and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank Group. At this post, she acted as the interlocutor between the World Bank's senior management, its Board of Directors and the 186 countries that make up the World Bank Group shareholders. Ms Georgieva obtained her MA in Political Economy and Sociology at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her PhD in Economic Science was granted by the same university, for her dissertation on Environmental Policy. Between 1977 and 1993, she worked as associate professor at the University of National and World Economy. During this period she was also a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and spent one year as Visiting Professor at Fiji's University of the South Pacific and the Australian National University. In 1991 she went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she did post-graduate research in environmental policy, co-led a course on economies in transition, and consulted on environmental policy in Eastern Europe.