Wolfgang Fengler is the World Bank’s Lead Economist in Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation. A native German, Wolfgang has been a staff member of the World Bank for more than 18 years, during which he lived in four continents: First in North America working at the World Bank’s headquarters in Washington DC, then in Asia as a Senior Economist in the Indonesia office, followed by Africa, where he served as the World Bank’s Lead Economist in the Nairobi office. Finally, he moved to Europe as part of the senior team of the World Bank’s new hub in Vienna.
Wolfgang has published extensively on social and economic issues. He also co-authored "Delivering Aid Differently" (with Homi Kharas, Brookings) and "Africa’s Economic Boom" (with Shanta Devarajan, Foreign Affairs). He spoke at TEDx Vienna and launched population.io (endorsed by Bill Gates) as well as worldpoverty.io, two real-time big data models. The German weekly DER SPIEGEL called Wolfgang a "big data virtuoso." Prior to joining the World Bank, he set up Africa Consulting, LLC, and was a Fellow at the Research Institute for International Relations. He gained a PhD from the University of Hamburg (Germany). Wolfgang loves traveling and sports, especially football. He was the football commissioner at the International School of Kenya and organized the “Nairobi Mini World Cup”, one of Kenya’s largest football tournaments for kids.
