Michal Kováč

(*5 August 1930 in Ľubiša – †5 October 2016 in Bratislava)

On 1 February 1955 he joined the Regional Institute of Štátna banka československá for Slovakia in Bratislava as head of the 161 - State Property Department. On 1 January 1959 he was appointed director of Planning and Economic Administration and from 1 January 1960 he held the position of head of the Department of National Economic Analysis. From 1963 to 1964 he taught at the banking school of the Cuban State Bank. After returning to Czechoslovakia, he was appointed deputy chief executive of the Regional Institute of Štátna banka československá for Slovakia on 5 February 1965. From 1967 to 1969 he worked as deputy director of the branch of Živnostenská banka in London.

In the 1960s he played a significant role in the reform process of Czechoslovak banking and was nominated vice-governor of Federálna emisná banka (Federal Bank of Issue). After being dismissed from his functions on 1 April 1970 as part of the political repression known as “normalisation”, he joined the branch of Štátna banka československá in Bratislava-city as an ordinary employee on 15 January 1971. Alongside this work, from 1978 to December 1989, he worked as a researcher at institutions such as Výskumný ústav finančnej a úverovej sústavy (Research Institute of Financial and Credit System), later in Ústredný ústav národohospodárskeho výskumu, (Central Institute of National Economic Research), Výskumný ústav sociálneho rozvoja a práce (Research Institute of Social Development and Labour). He focused on monetary policy and banking issues. After the political and social changes in 1989, he became Minister of Finance of the Slovak Republic. From 1993 to 1998 he was President of the Slovak Republic.