Aleš Michl

Aleš Michl is a Czech economist and has served as Governor of the Czech National Bank since July 2022. He holds a PhD in finance from the University of Economics in Prague. In 2025, he was named Governor of the Year by Central Banking and European Governor of the Year by The Banker (Financial Times).

Under his leadership, inflation was reduced from 17.5% in July 2022 to 2.4% in 2024. As a milestone in transparency and accountability, the Czech National Bank commissioned its first-ever external review of monetary policy, with the results published in November 2024.

In 2023, the CNB carried out extensive streamlining. The number of executive directors reporting directly to the Bank Board was reduced from 17 to 14, and the total number of staff positions was cut by 5.1% – the largest such reduction in over a decade. Some phased-out positions have been taken over by AI, reflecting the bank’s forward-looking modernisation strategy. Under Michl’s direction, the Czech National Bank also began purchasing gold and increased the proportion of equities in its foreign exchange reserves. In 2025, the national instant payments system reached universal coverage, giving the entire population access to real-time payments in Czech koruna.

Before joining the Czech National Bank, Aleš Michl worked as an investment strategist at a commercial bank and co-founded an algorithmic asset-management fund focused on US equities and the Czech money market. He is also the author of several academic and popular publications on economics and the popularisation of mathematics.