Aleš Michl

He was born on October 18, 1977 in Prague. He graduated from the Faculty of Finance and Accounting of the University of Economics in Prague. He received his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Economics in 2020, and his engineering degree Ing. from the same university in 2002. Three years later, he completed the Game Theory and Psychology of Decision-Making program at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK, and in 2009, the Investment Portfolio Management course at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

From 2006 to 2015, he worked as an analyst and investment strategist at Raiffeisenbank. Since February 2014, he has been an external advisor to the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic, focusing on macroeconomic analysis and stabilization of the state debt.

On 1 December 2018, he became a member of the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank. Effective 1 July 2022, he was appointed Governor of the Czech National Bank for a six-year term.

At the time of his appointment, inflation in the Czech Republic was 17.5%, and a few months later it was even 18%, which was the highest inflation rate since the transition to a market economy in the 1990s. The bank was also facing the largest loss in its history.

In spring 2023, the CNB achieved the tightest monetary conditions in the last 20 years and the koruna reached its strongest level in history. In February, March and June 2024, the CNB successfully reduced annual inflation to the 2% target, a level that had not been achieved since December 2018. This restored price stability in the country and fulfilled the bank's statutory mandate. Aleš Michl was one of the first central bankers in Europe to meet this target.

Under the leadership of Aleš Michl, the Czech National Bank began buying gold and increasing the share of stocks in its foreign exchange reserves with the aim of increasing the expected return on the bank's assets so that in the future this return would exceed the expected cost of liabilities and allow the bank to cope with financial losses.

In 2023, the governor initiated a large-scale rationalization of the institution. In addition to reducing the top management directly reporting to the Bank Board from 17 to 14 directors, the total number of jobs was reduced by 5.1%. This was the first comprehensive streamlining of the CNB's operations in the last 10 years.

Aleš Michl was not and is not a member of any political party.