Aleš Michl appointed new CNB Governor

Aleš Michl (44) will be the new Governor of the Czech National Bank. At a ceremony at Prague Castle today, President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman today appointed him for a six-year term with effect from 1 July 2022. Aleš Michl has been a member of the CNB Bank Board since 1 December 2018.

“I can assure you that the CNB will remain conservative and will continue to fulfil its monetary and financial stability objectives. This will not change in any way over the next six years,” said Aleš Michl during the appointment ceremony. “I assume I will propose at the first Bank Board meeting in the summer in my new role as Governor that interest rates remain stable for a while, and that we assess the impacts of monetary policy so far, evaluate the new indicators from the economy, and wait a while before deciding what to do next,” he added.

Aleš Michl will be the fifth Governor of the Czech National Bank. His predecessors were Josef Tošovský, who held the post twice in 1989–1997 and 1998–2000, Zdeněk Tůma (2000–2010), Miroslav Singer (2010–2016) and Jiří Rusnok (from 2016 up to now). Governor Rusnok’s term of office will expire on 30 June 2022 and cannot be renewed.

The Bank Board has seven members. Besides Governor Jiří Rusnok, it currently comprises Deputy Governors Marek Mora and Tomáš Nidetzký, and Bank Board members Vojtěch Benda, Oldřich Dědek, Tomáš Holub and Aleš Michl.

Bank Board members are appointed by the President of the Czech Republic for a term of six years and are not allowed to hold the position of member of the Bank Board more than twice.

Aleš Michl

Aleš Michl was born in Prague on 18 October 1977. He obtained a Ph.D. in finance at the University of Economics in Prague in 2020. He graduated from the University of Economics with an MSc (Ing.) degree in 2002. He completed a training programme on game theory and the psychology of decision-making at the Summer School at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2005 and took an investment portfolio management course at the Wharton School in Philadelphia in 2009. He started his professional career as an economic journalist during his studies and later as an economic adviser to Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Martin Jahn. He worked as an economic and investment strategist at Raiffeisenbank in 2006–2015. In 2014–2018, he was an external economic adviser to the Czech Ministry of Finance and later the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, specialising in macroeconomic analysis and government debt stabilisation. He founded Michl Fund Management s.r.o. in 2016, which subsequently co-founded Robot Asset Management SICAV a.s., which carries on the activities of an investment fund for qualified investors with the Quant sub-fund. He terminated these activities on the date of commencement of his position in the CNB Board. Mr Michl is the author of numerous columns and articles in newspapers, journals and magazines. He also wrote the books MICHLiq – průvodce ekonomií a investicemi (MICHLiq – a guide to economics and investment) and Jestřábi a holubice (Hawks and Doves). He is not and has never been a member of a political party. Aleš Michl was appointed a member of the CNB Bank Board on 1 December 2018.

Markéta Fišerová
Director of the Communications Division and CNB Spokesperson