Bulgarian Becomes First Woman Head of Eurostat

Bulgarian economist and statistician Mariana Kotzeva has been appointed Director General of Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Kotzeva is not only the first Bulgarian to become a Director General within the European Commission but is also the first woman to head Eurostat.

The 51-year-old PhD in Statistics and demographics from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia was acting Director-General of Eurostat from 1 January 2017.

She joined Eurostat as a special adviser in 2012, becoming its Deputy Director-General in 2014. Before that, she headed the Bulgarian National Statistics Institute, NSI, from 2008 to 2012.

Kotzeva has meanwhile participated in numerous national and international projects of the World Bank, the EU, UNDP and the Bulgarian administration.

She has a long list of specializations from around the world. Her greatest achievement in Bulgaria was carrying out the 2011 census, which allowed Bulgarians to fill it in online for the first time, with 42 per cent of people choosing this method.

Kotseva, who comes from the town of Ruse, next to the Danube, studied in the local Baba Tonka Mathematics Highschool.

She has taught also in the Central European University in Budapest, as a visiting professor at the department of Econometrics. She is fluent in French, English and Russian.

In 2012, she was named the ninth most influential Bulgarian woman in Bulgaria's "Capital" weekly ranking.