Biography of Leszek Balcerowicz
former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister and President of the National Bank of Poland

Leszek Balcerowicz is currently Professor of Economics and Chair of International Comparative Studies at the University of Warsaw. Immediately prior to this he served as President of the National Bank of Poland where he implemented policies which brought inflation down from the low teens to less than 3% per year and made the Polish zloty one of the strongest currencies in the world. He served as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister in the first non-communist government and implemented the "Balcerowicz plan" which stablized the economy and introduced free markets, privatized state owned enterprises and reformed the fiscal system making Poland the fastest growing economy in Europe through most of the 1990s.