Mr. Michal Rutkowski is the Senior 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, Mr. Rutkowski worked extensively on social insurance and labor market issues in transition economies and as a country economist for Russia and after taking a leave from the Bank, 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 of 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 he helped design and implement the new Polish pension system while serving as the Director of the Office for Social Security Reform.
Mr. Rutkowski’s published work covers among others, issues on labor markets and social security. He was a core team member of the 1995 World Development Report “Workers in an Integrated World”- the World Bank’s annual flagship research publication.
Mr. 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 the Harvard Business School in 1999, and from the Leadership for Collective Intelligence program run by Dialogos in 2010.
Prior to joining the World Bank, he helped design the 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 the Warsaw School of Economics.
Mr. Rutkowski holds a Ph.D from Warsaw School of Economics and a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics.