Central bank balance sheets: managing dynamics and building resilience

Kenneth Sullivan was until 2015 a senior financial sector expert with the International Monetary Fund. Previously, he spent seven years at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as chief manager of both Accounting and Corporate Services where the bank won accounting prizes for the transparency of its published financial statements. Prior to that he provided a financial management information system consultancy, held senior accounting roles in insurance and wholesaling, and worked in education. Starting in 1993 he served as accounting expert on IMF missions, providing accounting technical assistance to central banks around the world, organized and presented at central bank accounting workshops and participated in Financial Sector Assessment Program and Safeguard Assessment

Marko Škreb is a former governor of the Croatian National Bank. Currently he is Central banking lead on a Financial sector reform project (FINRA) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, financed by USAID. Before that he was resident project manager for Canada-IMF Capacity building project at the National Bank of Ukraine. He moved to Kyiv from his position as advisor at the International Monetary Fund’s Regional Technical Assistance centre in Accra, Ghana.  Before that, he was chief economist and strategist at the second largest commercial bank in Croatia. Mr. Skreb started his professional career teaching at the University of Zagreb. Following academic vocation he joined the Croatian central bank, first as research and statistics director and later on as governor (from 1996 to 2000). In 1997 he was awarded the Central European Annual Awards for Excellence - Best Central Bank Governor by the Banker. Since 2000 he worked as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in numerous countries, mostly in South-East Europe. He also worked at the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF in Washington DC in the period 2004-2005. Mr Škreb published a number of articles and edited books, focusing on transition questions and financial issues.

Freyr Hermannsson is an experienced central banker and has worked with a dozen central banks and United Nations agencies since the turn of the century. He is an independent advisor focusing on sovereign asset and liability management, particularly balance sheet management and central bank policy solvency, reserve management and public debt management. He has hands-on knowledge of monetary and exchange operations, FX markets development, exchange rate regimes, FX regulations (incl. capital controls) and capital account liberalization, central banking recapitalization and related accounting issues.

Mr. Hermannsson initially joined the Central Bank of Iceland in 2000 and after several years in the private sector was drafted back into the central bank in Iceland’s 2008 financial crisis where he served as Head of Treasury. He led international reserves management, implemented central bank open market operations, negotiated government debt transactions, developed capital controls, and worked on crisis prevention and management during and after the crisis of 2008.

A mathematician by education, he holds a M.Sc. from Columbia University in Operation Research and a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has lectured on the mathematics and economics of financial markets as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Iceland.

Robin Darbyshire is a chartered accountant who has worked, as an independent consultant for 10 years, mainly on central bank issues. He has undertaken a number of projects for the International Monetary Fund, including implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in central banks. He has also worked on a payments system at a middle eastern central bank. Previously he spent 19 years with the Bank of England, for 17 of which he was responsible for the Bank’s accounts. He was a founder member of the committee that devised the accounting framework and policies for the European System of Central Banks and has recently undertaken projects for the European Central Bank related to Eurosystem accounting. He has written a number of articles on issues in central bank accounting and regularly speaks at conferences on central bank finances.

Dirk Broeders is a Senior Financial Risk Manager at the Financial Markets Division of De Nederlandsche Bank and a Full Professor of Finance at the School of Business and Economics of Maastricht University. He served as a Fellow at the Financial Stability Institute of the Bank for International Settlements and is a former Executive Member of the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors. He has published widely on finance and obtained his Ph.D. from Tilburg University.

Jonas Stulz is Head of Portfolio Management and Deputy Head of Asset Management at Swiss National Bank (SNB). His teams of portfolio managers in Zurich and Singapore are responsible for the active management of the fixed income portfolios within SNB’s foreign currency reserves. These portfolios include government and supra-sovereign bonds (rates) as well as investment grade corporate bonds and covered bonds (credit). He is based in Zurich. Jonas joined SNB in 2003; prior to his current position, he was Head of Global Rates at SNB. Before that, he worked as a Senior Economist and as a Senior Portfolio Manager for this institution. He holds a master degree in Economics from University of St. Gallen and a doctorate in monetary macroeconomics from University of Basel. Furthermore, he is a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM) with the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). Jonas Stulz is married with two children.