Michael Strauss

Michael Strauss started his role as General Counsel at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in January 2020.

A U.S. citizen, Mr Strauss and joined the EBRD from the Washington law firm Harris, Wiltshire and Grannis LLP, where he was a Partner.

Mr. Strauss has extensive commercial and development market experience. He began his career in 2001 in the London and Paris offices of the New York law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. After five years, he joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Legal Counsel. From the IMF, he went on to serve at World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as Senior Counsel.

He became a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for International Finance at the U.S. Treasury Department in 2011 and subsequently spent five years on the Board of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, serving as the U.S. Alternate Executive Director and then as Acting Executive Director.

Mr Strauss graduated with a Bachelor’s cum laude from Williams College in 1994, a Masters from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy in 1999 and a JD from Stanford Law School in 2001.