Jörg Asmussen has been Managing Director at Lazard since September 2016, and head Financial Institutions Group (FIG) for Continental Europe and advises sovereign and corporate clients.
He has more than 20 years of experience in the public sector as an economist and policymaker: As a state secretary in the German treasury, as state secretary in the German Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs as well as Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Governing Council
He has spent 15 years in the German treasury alone, before being state secretary under Minister Steinbrück and Minister Schäuble, he has served as Director General for Financial Markets and Head of the Ministers office under Minister Eichel
While with the Federal Ministry of Finance he was involved in the state aid proceedings of HSH Nordbank, LBBW, BayernLB and WestLB
During the time at the ECB and the treasury he acted as G7- and G20 deputy and member of the Euro Working Group (EWG) and the European Finance Committee (EFC), as well as representing his institution at the IMF meetings. He was involved in dealing with the economic crisis across the Euro area, working closely with the Greek, Spanish, Irish, Cypriot and Portuguese government
In 2011 he acted as Chancellor Merkel’s Sherpa for the G20 summit. He also dealt with the financial crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, for example as chairman of the German Bank Rescue Fund FMSA/Soffin and chairman of the Financial regulator BaFin
He has held a number of supervisory board positions during his treasury time, e.g. at Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Bahn, Postbank or Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
He has acted as alternate Governor for Germany for the World Bank and the EBRD, as well as member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB)
Currently he is a non-executive independent Board member at the Online Lending Platform Funding Circle and at Generali Investments, and member of the advisory council of the Online Factoring firm Billie.
He was a senior fellow at the Jaques-Delors Institute in Berlin and still is a co-editor of the magazine Berliner Republik
Mr. Asmussen holds an MBA from Bocconi University in Milan and a Master degree in economics from the University of Bonn
He has published a significant number of articles about European economic policy, especially the Euro area, financial market issues and regulation, as well as old age pensions