During his more than three years at the helm of the Bank of Portugal, 42-year-old Antonio de Sousa has successfully managed a delicate balancing act, avoiding the disputes over monetary policy that had often flared between the central bank and the treasury.
His political career dates from 1987 when he was appointed secretary of state for industry and includes appointments as deputy minister of foreign trade and deputy minister of finance. He has also held key jobs in the private sector as a board member of Banco Totta & Acores and president of Tottagespar.
Earlier, de Sousa worked as a management consultant in the US where he gained a doctorate in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He was appointed governor of the Bank of Portugal in 1994 under the social democratic government that was swept out of power by the socialists in the following year's general election. Although a member of the Social Democrat Party, de Sousa found his talents were acknowledged by the new government, which asked him to stay on. The socialists knew that the market would not welcome a change at the bank where de Sousa had shown himself to be far more aggressive than his predecessors on monetary policy.