Ivan Lesay
Ivan Lesay (born June 8, 1980) is a Slovak political scientist, economist, civil servant, columnist and writer. In the years 2015–2017, he served as State Secretary of the Finance Ministry of the Slovak Republic. Education and academic career. Lesay was born in Trnava on June 8, 1980. After finishing his secondary school studies at Ján Hollý Grammar School in Trnava, he read Political Science at the University of Trnava (2000–2005) and Political Economy at the Central European University in Budapest (2005–2006). He earned his Doctorate in Economics at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (2010). He has completed several  study and research visits at universities across Europe, for example at the Umeå University in Sweden (2004) and at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (2009). He gained teaching experience at the University of Trnava (2006–2007), the Faculty of Social and Economic sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava (2011) and the University of Vienna (2011–2012). He was awarded the Slovak Presidential Prize for young scientists from the Slovak Academy of Sciences for 2011. In his academic work, he has focused mostly on development policy, the welfare state and the political economy of the 2008 Financial Crisis. Career outside Academia . Ivan Lesay served as national coordinator of Friends of the Earth-CEPA in the CEE Bankwatch Network (2006–2009) and as editor of the weekly (2007). He also worked as advisor to Monika Flašíková-Beňová MEP (2009–2012), as a researcher at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (2010–2016), and was a regular columnist for the Slovak daily newspaper Pravda (2011–2012). In (2012–2015), he was an advisor to the Finance Minister of the Slovak Republic, a consultant to the Slovak Prime Minister's Council of Advisors on financial policy, and editor of the Critical Economy blog on the web portal JeToTak.sk (2010–2015). As  State Secretary of the Finance Ministry of the Slovak Republic (2015–2017), he was responsible for duties related to the Presidency of the Slovak Republic of the EU Council between July 2016 and January 2017. He has also represented the Slovak Republic in a number of international institutions. He was a member of the board of directors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM), the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC) and the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG). He also served as alternate governor of the International Monetary Fund. He is one of the founders of the  National Development Fund II, in which he served as the chair of the Board of Supervisors. Writing. His works include a popular study of the 2008 Financial Crisis "Život na úver (Všetko, čo ste chceli vedieť o kríze)" ["Living on Credit (Everything you Wanted to Know about the Crisis)"], co-authored with Prof. Joachim Becker Vienna University of Economics and Business.