Heike Harmgarth

Dr Heike Harmgart is the EBRD‘s first Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa. She is in charge of setting up the Bank‘s operations in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
Until September 2024, Dr Harmgart was the Managing Director for the southern and eastern Mediterranean region. Under her leadership, the region reached record levels of private investment annually, and she led the expansion to Algeria, Libya and Iraq. 
A German national, Dr Harmgart joined the EBRD in 2006 as an economist. In 2013 she became EBRD’s first Head of Office in Jordan, based in Amman. She was appointed Director for the Eastern Mediterranean after EBRD expanded under her local leadership into Lebanon and West Bank and Gaza in 2017.
Dr Harmgart serves as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Fragility and Resilience.
She has been selected by Forbes Middle East in 2020 and 2021 as one of the 10 most powerful women in business in the Middle East.
Prior to joining EBRD she worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She holds a PhD in economics from University College London