Mugur Isărescu

Isărescu was born in Drăgășani, Vâlcea County, Romania. His father was a school teacher who, after the establishment of the Romanian People's Republic, studied at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest (ASE), worked as a bank executive during the 1950s, and then was a professor of accounting for 20 years.

Isărescu studied international trade at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, which he graduated in 1971, and where he was an assistant professor between 1975 and 1989. In 1989, Isărescu defended his Ph.D. thesis on exchange rate policies under the supervision of Costin Kirițescu.

For 19 years, he worked as a researcher for the Institute of International Economics. He took a number of courses in the United States, writing several papers on capitalist economics. Isărescu claims it was as if he prepared for 20 years for the 1990 moment.

During this period he gave notes under several aliases to the Communist Secret Services about ladies with different problems, about colleagues at the institute, and about the foreigners he was meeting. One alias Isărescu used to sign the information notes to the Securitate was "Manole".

In February 1990, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he began working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In March 1990, he was sent to work as an economic and monetary affairs secretary at the Romanian Embassy in the United States, being in charge of handling Romania's relations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

He expected that Romania would need IMF help within a couple of years, but he was surprised to find that the government depleted the foreign-exchange reserves within six months and, as such, he was recalled to Romania in July 1990 to head the National Bank.