New Staff Member: Katsiaryna Svirydzenka

Katsiaryna Svirydzenka joined the JVI as Lead Economist in January 2026. She brings 15 years of experience at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including as Deputy Division Chief in the Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM) focusing on macro financial surveillance, Deputy Mission Chief for Sri Lanka, Mission Chief for Bhutan and Tuvalu, and Assistant to the Asia and Pacific Department (APD) Director Chang Yong Rhee, helping manage the department’s strategy and operations. Having joined the IMF in 2010, she worked on emerging markets and GRA lending facilities in the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department (SPR) and contributed to the work of multiple country teams, including Japan, India, Russia, Malaysia, Serbia, and Mongolia. Her research interests include financial development and cycles, network analysis and systemic risk, financial spillovers, and zombie firms. She pioneered the use of network analysis to map systemic risk in the global interbank market post Global Financial Crisis (joint work with the Bank of England) and created the IMF’s Financial Development Index, now a widely used global benchmark covering 183 countries. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva, Switzerland), M.A. in International Economics and International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Bologna, Italy, and Washington DC), and B.A. in Economics from the American University in Bulgaria.