Axel van Trotsenburg is the World Bank’s Senior Managing Director (SMD), responsible for Development Policy and Partnerships.

A Dutch-Austrian national, he directs the World Bank’s core development work captured by the Verticals – People, Planet, Prosperity, Infrastructure and Digital – and ensures its integration into operations, with a special focus on climate change, fragility, human capital, and debt sustainability.

He oversees the Bank’s partnerships including with the UN, international financial institutions, and bilateral partners, and co-chairs the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA). He represents the Bank in the G7 and G20 meetings and leads the Bank’s climate engagement in the context of the annual COP convenings.

Prior to this, Axel was the Managing Director of Operations for 3.5 years where he oversaw the Bank’s global operations, with a footprint spanning more than 140 offices. He was responsible for the delivery of the World Bank program of loans, grants, credits, and trust funds and an annual lending and financial support program that averaged around $70 billion/year.

While MDO, he managed the massive increase in financial assistance during the COVID19 and other crises, reaching about $225 billion. In the year before assuming his MDO position, he was at separate times Acting World Bank CFO and Acting World Bank CEO.

Axel has extensive experience mobilizing financial resources for development.  As Vice President for Development Finance in 2016-2019, he was responsible for the replenishment and stewardship of IDA. He has led and negotiated the IDA16 and IDA18 cycles, and chaired IDA20, which together mobilized a record $293 billion for the world’s poor. Axel also co-led the WBG’s efforts to obtain a capital increase which resulted in shareholders endorsing a transformative package in April 2018, including an increase of the IBRD capital by $60 billion. He served as Vice President for the Latin America and Caribbean Region in 2019; as East Asia and Pacific Region from 2013 to 2016; as Country Director for Colombia and Mexico from July 2007 to July 2009; and as Country Director for Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay from 2002-2007.

Axel was a Senior Manager and architect of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, the largest and most comprehensive debt relief program for poor countries and was responsible, with his IMF counterparts, for the design of the debt relief framework and delivery of debt relief packages of about $30 billion for 20 countries.