Tomas Kairys to lead EBRD operations in Baltic states

• Tomas Kairys, senior lawyer at the EBRD, is appointed Head of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
• Kairys is the first national of a Baltic state to hold the position
• The EBRD continues regional focus on green economy in energy and infrastructure, capital markets

The EBRD has announced the appointment of a new head of its operations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Tomas Kairys, currently a senior lawyer at the Bank, will formally assume the position of EBRD Head of the Baltic States on 15 October 2022. Kairys will be based in Vilnius, Lithuania, and report to Elisabetta Falcetti, Director, Regional Head of Central Europe and the Baltic States, who is based in Poland.

Today, Tomas Kairys was introduced to the authorities in Lithuania during a meeting of the EBRD Board of Directors delegation with the Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė, who represents Lithuania on the EBRD Board of Governors. Kairys will visit Estonia and Latvia soon after the formal start to his new role.

He will succeed Ian Brown, current Head of the Baltic States, who will retire after a long career at the Bank. 

Tomas Kairys said: “In these challenging times for the region, the EBRD remains strongly committed to the Baltic states and plans to increase its investment there. Our priorities remain helping to accelerate a green economy transition in energy and infrastructure, and supporting digitalisation and access to more diversified sources of finance including capital markets. In the context of the war in Ukraine, we will increase our work in the region, not only to help the Baltic states strengthen their energy security and capital markets but also to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), municipal services and the livelihoods of displaced people.”

A Lithuanian national – and the first from the Baltic states to hold this position – Kairys first joined the Bank from the private sector in 2006 as a lawyer with the EBRD’s Office of the General Counsel in London, specialising in banking projects and capital market transactions. 

From 2011-15 he was based in Istanbul, the first EBRD lawyer to work locally in Turkey, which had become an EBRD country of operations in 2009.

From 2019-21 Kairys was assigned to the newest multilateral development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, in Beijing, China, where he took on a senior role as Chief Counsel for Investment Operations.

He brings to his new role a wide spectrum of knowledge and skills as well as sectoral and regional experience, including in supporting complex debt and equity finance and capital market transactions in the EBRD’s more economically advanced regions.

To date, the Bank has invested about €875 million in Estonia, €1 billion in Latvia and €1.15 billion in Lithuania. In 2022, the EBRD plans to commit at least €350 million to the region, in projects ranging from energy security to SME support.

Source: EBRD