Ewald Nowotny
Boards now have to make capital decisions inside a monetary regime they no longer understand. Rates moved further and faster than most strategy decks were built to absorb, and the eurozone’s political fault lines have not closed. Leaders need a working read on how central banks actually decide, not a commentary on what they did last quarter.
Ewald Nowotny is a former Governor of the Austrian National Bank and ECB Governing Council member who helps boards and finance leaders read monetary policy decisions and the politics of the euro from the inside.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Ewald Nowotny
- A first-hand account of ECB Governing Council decision-making across the sovereign debt crisis, the negative-rate era, and the start of unconventional policy unwind, by someone who voted in the room.
- Cross-institutional perspective most central bankers cannot match: ECB Governing Council, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, CEO of BAWAG P.S.K., and a chair of the Austrian Parliament’s Finance Committee.
- An economist’s framework, not a commentator’s view. Three decades as a full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, with nine books and a standard public finance textbook in its fifth edition.
- A direct read on European political economy and the durability of the euro, from a participant who was inside the German-Austrian bloc on the Council during its most contested years.
Biography highlights
- Governor, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and member of the ECB Governing Council, 2008 to 2019.
- Vice President, European Investment Bank, 1999 to 2003.
- CEO, BAWAG P.S.K. Group, 2006 to 2008.
- Full Professor of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, 1981 to 2008; Vice Rector for Finance, 2003 to 2005.
- Member of the Austrian National Council, 1978 to 1999; Chair of the Finance Committee, 1985 to 1999.
- Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur (2017); Honorary Member, SUERF.
Biography
The eurozone has spent fifteen years inside policy regimes most boards were not built to read. Sovereign debt crisis, negative rates, asset purchase programmes, and the start of policy normalisation each redrew the cost of capital and the political settlement around it. Ewald Nowotny was inside the room where those decisions were taken.
As Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank from 2008 to 2019, he sat on the ECB Governing Council through every one of those phases. He voted on the response to the Greek crisis, on the launch of large-scale asset purchases, and on the policy stance that defined European credit conditions for a decade. His public commentary, captured across BIS speech archives and central banking media, tracked the substantive arguments inside the Council rather than the headlines outside it.
Before the central bank, his career covered the institutions that shape European capital flows from different angles. He served as Vice President of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg from 1999 to 2003, then as CEO of BAWAG P.S.K. Group during a period of acute restructuring at the Austrian bank. Earlier, he chaired the Finance Committee of the Austrian Parliament for fourteen years.
The academic standing is the second axis. He held a full professorship at Vienna University of Economics and Business for almost three decades and co-authored the standard German-language textbook on public sector finance, now in its fifth edition. He was made Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur in 2017 and is an honorary member of SUERF, the European Money and Finance Forum.
Key speaking topics
- Eurozone monetary policy and the future of the euro
- ECB decision-making and central bank independence
- European banking regulation after the financial crisis
- Sovereign debt and fiscal policy in the EU
- Macroeconomic outlook and global capital markets
- Public sector finance
Ideal for
- Boards and audit committees stress-testing capital and treasury assumptions against European monetary policy
- CFOs, group treasurers, and CIOs in banking, insurance, and asset management
- Public-sector and supranational audiences working on EU economic governance
- Senior policy and corporate-affairs leaders engaging with European institutions
Audience outcomes
- A working account of how the ECB Governing Council weighs price stability against financial stability, from someone who voted on those trade-offs.
- A clearer view of what is structural versus cyclical in eurozone politics, including the German-Austrian fiscal stance and its likely persistence.
- Specific reference points for reading future ECB decisions: which arguments tend to win on the Council, and which signals matter.
- Context on the European Investment Bank and the EU’s supranational lending architecture as a tool of policy and capital allocation.