Dr. Michal Rutkowski is the Regional Director for Education, Health and Social Policy in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank. Before July 1, 2023, he was Global Director for Social Protection and Jobs – overseeing the World Bank Global Practice responsible for protecting poor and vulnerable from shocks through improving their job opportunities, earning capacity, and social insurance and social assistance (safety net) coverage. Until July 2016, he was the Director for Multilateral Organizations, and prior to that the Country Director for the Russian Federation and the Resident Representative in Moscow for three years. In the period 2004-12, he was Sector Director for Human Development in the Middle East and North Africa and then South Asia regions of the World Bank.
Before 1996, after a brief period of work on Africa and China, Dr. Rutkowski worked extensively on social insurance and labor market issues in transition economies and as a country economist for Russia. After taking a leave from the Bank, Dr. Rutkowski returned as Sector Manager for social protection between 1998-2004, where he led a team of professionals working on pensions, labor market and social assistance reforms in 28 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, as well as in Turkey.
During his leave from the World Bank in the period 1996-98, Dr. Rutkowski helped design and implement the new Polish pension system while serving as the Director of the Office for Social Security Reform. He also taught at the Institute of Economic Policy at Warsaw School of Economics.
Dr. Rutkowski’s published work covers, among others, issues on labor markets, wage bargaining, social protection, social inclusion, cash transfers, and skills. He was a core team member of the 1995 World Development Report “Workers in an Integrating World”- the World Bank’s annual flagship research publication and oversaw the 2019 World Development Report “The Changing Nature of Work”.
Dr. Rutkowski holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D from Warsaw School of Economics and finished his post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics. He also graduated from the Executive Development Program at Harvard Business School in 1999, and from the Leadership for Collective Intelligence program run by Dialogos in 2010.