Antal NIKOLETTI
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Economist with more than 35 years of professional experience spanning finance, banking sector, public administration, diplomacy, and international organizations. He has held senior executive and leadership positions in banking in Hungary and abroad, combining policy-making, financial oversight, and international representation. A major highlight of his career was serving two mandates as a Member of the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In this role, he represented a five-country constituency consisting of Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Georgia.
His Board responsibilities included the approval of financing projects in the financial, energy, infrastructure, and SME sectors. He was directly involved in assessing complex macroeconomic, political, and financial analyses underpinning the Bank’s investment and lending decisions. A core element of his mandate was aligning and harmonizing the interests of the represented countries within a multilateral framework. He also served as First Deputy Secretary General of the Central European Initiative in Trieste, Italy. In this capacity, he coordinated regional cooperation among 17 member states and oversaw the organization’s operational framework. His work at CEI focused particularly on strengthening economic cooperation and advancing European integration.
He coordinated strategic planning for projects related to infrastructure development, digitalization, sustainable development, and scientific and educational cooperation. Earlier, he served as Deputy State Secretary at Hungary’s Ministry for National Economy, responsible for economic diplomacy and international economic relations. His duties included export development, investment promotion, and supervision of Hungary’s international economic diplomacy network operating in more than 50 countries. He contributed to the design and implementation of foreign economic strategy and represented national economic interests in multilateral forums. Before his public-sector career, he held senior management positions in major commercial banks, specializing in risk management and subsidiary bank leadership. He also served as Deputy CEO and Head of Finance at Budapest Airport, overseeing finance, treasury, and insurance functions.
