Alfred Steinherr

Former Chief Economist, European Investment Bank

From 1995 to 1998, Alfred Steinherr was the Chief Economist and Director General of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg. He subsequently served as the founding rector of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (1998 to 2003), where he also taught as a professor of economics.

Thereafter, he headed the Economic Research Department at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin from 2005 to 2007. He also serves on several academic and business boards.

Professor Steinherr worked for the International Monetary Fund in Washington from 1979 to 1981 and as a scientific advisor to the European Commission from 1981 to 1984.

Dr. Steinherr is the author of the widely acclaimed "Derivatives: The Wild Beast of Finance" (1998), a pathbreaking book that foreshadowed much of the current global debate about the problems with the derivatives market.

Earlier in his career, he was a Professor of Economics at Université Catholique de Louvain, a Senior Economist at the IMF and Economic Counsellor for the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission.

Dr. Steinherr has a Master of Science degree in Mathematics from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

He is fluent in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and basic Chinese.