Teresa Czerwińska (born 7 September 1974)[1] is a Polish economist originally from Latvia. Since 2020, she has served as a vice president of the European Investment Bank.
Early life and education
Czerwińska was born in Daugavplis,[2]Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. She is the daughter of two Latvian Poles — Bronisław and Ludmiła Tumanowski.[2] As a child, she was active within the Association of Poles, where she served as a scout. She was awarded a scholarship for being a part of the Polish diaspora, which inspired her to leave Daugavplis in order to begin her studies in Poland.[3]
In 2011, Czerwińska was offered a position as an associate professor within the Department of Financial Systems of Economics and within the Department of Management. Between 2015-2018, she was the secretary in the Polish Academy of Sciences for the Committee on Financial Sciences.
In 2015, she became the Undersecretary of the State in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.[4] Within her role, Czerwińska was responsible for many areas within the department. She helped with the development and implementation of a new mechanism that uses algorithms to allocate budget subsidies for public universities. This improved the efficiency of how funds were spent and the implementation of quality solutions for financing universities. Then, in 2017, Czerwińska was appointed Undersecretary of the State in the Ministry of Finance, where she was responsible for the preparation and implementation of state budget, and also handling funds from the European Union.[5]
In March 2019, daily newspaper Puls Biznesu reported that Czerwińska was considering stepping down over plans by the PiS party to increase spending by up to $10 billion, focusing on child subsidies, state pensions and transport infrastructure as part of its campaign for parliamentary elections; a government spokesperson later said that Czerwińska had in fact not submitted her resignation.[8] Shortly after, she was replaced with her deputy Marian Banaś as part of a cabinet reshuffle.[9]
From 2019 to 2020, Czerwińska served as a member of the Management Board of the National Bank of Poland.
European Investment Bank, 2020–present
Czerwińska has been serving as a Vice President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2020.[10] At the EIB, she has worked on several portfolios including affordable housing, addressing climate change, and aid to Ukraine.[11]