Wafik Grais holds the position of Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of San Marino, appointed by Parliament on January 21st 2016.

Wafik Grais has extensive expertise in financial regulation and supervision, private equity, corporate governance, Islamic finance and green growth financing, acquired in the public and private sectors and in International Financial Organizations.

He was Board member of the Lupercale SICAR based in Luxembourg. He was co-founder and chairman of Viveris Mashrek, a Cairo based, financial advisory services company licensed by Egypt’s Financial Services Authority.

He spent 28 years at the World Bank in Washington DC where he held senior positions. Notably, Wafik Grais managed country and sector programs on the Middle East and North Africa, Europe and Central Asia. He was director of the private and financial sector development group for the Middle East and North Africa region and senior adviser in the World Bank global Financial Sector group, head of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), and lead resource on Islamic finance. Before joining the World Bank, Wafik Grais was Adjunct Professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

In 1997-1998, Wafik Grais represented the Government of Egypt on the team setting up the Bank for Cooperation and Development in the Middle East and North Africa in Cairo.

He was a member of a Mediterranean green development working group that developed recommendations for the Rio+20 UN Conference. He is a Fellow of the Economic Research Forum for the Middle East and North Africa, based in Cairo.

Wafik Grais has written extensively notably on financial development and regulation, for conventional and Islamic finance as well as green financing. He has co-authored with Amr El Tiby the book: “Islamic Finance and Economic Development: Risk, Regulation, and Corporate Governance”, John Wiley (June 2014).

Wafik Grais holds a PhD in economics from the University of Geneva as well as degrees in mathematical economics and political science from the same University.