Speakers

Mr. David Lezhava is Public Policy Sector Director at Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG), and has 30+ years of professional working experience in the fields of public finance and economic development.

Mr. Lezhava worked in many different types of organizations such as private sector, non-governmental organization, development institutions, but for this panel the most relevant positions in his carrier were at National Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ministry of finance of Georgia.

During 2012-2016 David as Deputy Minister of Finance of Georgia, among other responsibilities was in charge for development of strategic documents, Mr. Lezhava interacted with all line ministries to coordinate social and economic policy directions.

Prior to that Mr. Lezhava worked as Advisor to the Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, in Washington D.C. where he represented the interests of Georgian authorities, facilitated IMF program implementation in Georgia, and reviewed IMF policy documents.

As a Chief Economist, Head of Research Division, and Member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the National Bank of Georgia, Mr. Lezhava led the creation of economic models for macroeconomic forecasts and contributed to monetary and foreign exchange (FX) policy decision making.

Mr. Lezhava holds a master’s degree in Development Economics from Williams College (USA) and a candidate’s degree in Physics from The Academy of Science of Georgia. He is fluent in Georgian, English and Russian.