Who Is Dejan Šoškić

Dejan Šoškić (Belgrade, 15 March 1967) is a Serbian economist, a full professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade, and a former Governor of the National Bank of Serbia. He headed the central bank from July 2010 to August 2012. He then submitted an irrevocable resignation over amendments to the Law on the National Bank of Serbia, which he regarded as a serious threat to the institution’s independence.

The professional community recognizes him as a specialist in financial markets, securities, and monetary economics. He has authored and co-authored several textbooks and more than 70 academic papers. Over the course of his career, he has taught at universities in Serbia and the United States, and he is also a Fulbright scholar.

After leaving the National Bank, he returned to teaching and remained a visible commentator on economic policy. In September 2026, he was named on the electoral list “Studentska lista – Studenti pobeđuju” (Student List – Students Are Winning) for the snap parliamentary elections scheduled for 25 October 2026.

Early Life and Childhood

Dejan Šoškić was born on 15 March 1967 in Belgrade, in what was then the Socialist Republic of Serbia, part of SFR Yugoslavia. He comes from a family with a strong economic and academic tradition.

His father, Branislav Šoškić, was a prominent economist, an academician, and a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. Born in 1922 in Gusinje, he had a notable public career in Montenegro. From 1985 to 1986, he served as President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro.

Branislav Šoškić was a member of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He spent the final years of his life in Belgrade, where he died on 4 April 2022, at the age of 99.

Details about Dejan’s childhood, as well as his primary and secondary schooling, are not publicly known. What is known is that he chose the same academic field as his father.

Education

Šoškić studied at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade, graduating in 1989. On that occasion, the University of Belgrade named him the best student of his generation, one of the highest honors a student can receive.

He continued his postgraduate studies at the same faculty, in the Monetary Economics and Banking program. He earned his master’s degree in 1993 with a thesis titled “Securities and Ownership Transformation: Global Experiences and the Yugoslav Case.” The topic was especially relevant at a time when the economy of the former Yugoslavia was undergoing ownership transformation.

He defended his doctoral dissertation in finance in 1999, also at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. With it, he attained the highest academic degree in the field he still works in today.

In addition to his studies in Belgrade, he pursued further training abroad. He studied in France in 1990 and then three times in the United States (1994, 1998, and 2002), where he completed specialized programs in financial markets. In 2001, he also trained at the Swiss National Bank. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Fulbright Program.

Early Career

Šoškić began his professional career in 1991 at the Economics Institute in Belgrade. By 1993, he had moved to the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, where he gradually rose through all academic ranks, from teaching assistant to full professor.

At the faculty, he teaches courses in financial markets, securities, economic statistics, and risk analysis. His teaching is closely tied to the field he explored in both his master’s thesis and his doctoral dissertation.

Besides his work in Belgrade, he also taught in the United States. At the University of Nebraska Omaha, he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Financial Markets and Institutions, Financial Management, and International Business and Economics. In 2002, he was a guest lecturer at the University of New Haven, the University of Rhode Island, and Berkeley.

He also held a number of leadership positions at the Faculty of Economics. He chaired the Commission for Graduate Studies in Foreign Languages and the Commission for the Recognition of Foreign Degrees. From 2004 to 2006, he served as Vice-Dean for Research.

In addition, he led the research project “Development of Financial Markets in the Transition of the Serbian Economy,” funded by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.

Rise Through Monetary Institutions

Alongside his academic work, from late 2000 onward Šoškić became involved in the institutions that shape monetary and economic policy. From late 2000 to 2002, he was a special adviser for financial markets at the National Bank of Yugoslavia.

From 2002 to 2003, he worked as an economic policy adviser at the EU Policy and Legal Advice Centre. The center provided expert support for reforms in Serbia during the early years of the transition.

From 2003 to 2004, he was a member of the Council of the National Bank of Serbia. Several years later, he returned to this body as its chairman, a position he held from 2009 until July 2010.

During the same period, from 2009 to 2010, he was also a member of the Economic Council of the Prime Minister of Serbia. These roles made him one of the most influential economic experts in the country and opened the way to the governorship.

Dejan Šoškić as Governor of the National Bank of Serbia

The previous governor, Radovan Jelašić, resigned for personal reasons on 23 March 2010. Serbian President Boris Tadić then nominated Dejan Šoškić, at the time chairman of the Council of the National Bank of Serbia, as the new governor.

The National Assembly of Serbia elected him governor on 28 July 2010, with the votes of 129 members of the then ruling majority. He took office the following day, 29 July 2010, for a six-year term. He assumed the post as a non-partisan figure and a professor at the University of Belgrade.

Immediately after his election, Šoškić and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković announced that the established economic policy would continue, with the goal of preserving the country’s macroeconomic and financial stability. At that point, Serbia was still grappling with the consequences of the global financial crisis.

His term was marked by accelerating price growth in the second half of 2010, amid very low rates of economic growth. In an interview with the magazine “Ekonomist” at the end of 2010, he said that as governor he could not be satisfied unless the situation improved in the following year. At the same time, he advocated for developing dinar financial instruments without a foreign-currency clause.

During 2012, the National Bank’s key policy rate ranged between 9.5 and 10.25 percent. Over his term, the dinar’s exchange rate against the euro moved from about 107 to about 118 dinars, a depreciation of roughly ten percent.

This figure is still interpreted in different ways. Representatives of the Serbian Progressive Party criticized the weakening of the dinar and the use of foreign exchange reserves for interventions in the currency market. On the other hand, part of the professional community points out that the exchange rate movement broadly tracked the difference between domestic inflation and inflation in the eurozone.

During his term, the National Bank placed Agrobanka under temporary administration on 29 December 2011, and the bank’s operating license was revoked on 25 May 2012. The case later became a frequent subject of political debate about his record.

His vice-governors during his term included Bojan Marković, Ana Gligorijević, and Mira Erić-Jović.

The 2012 Resignation

After the parliamentary elections in May 2012, a new ruling majority was formed. Soon afterward, talk began of a change in the leadership of the National Bank of Serbia. During this period, Šoškić publicly stated that he saw no reason to resign and that those seeking his removal could use the procedures provided by law.

The new government sent amendments to the Law on the National Bank of Serbia to parliament. These amendments raised concern among international institutions. Reza Moghadam, Director of the International Monetary Fund’s European Department, warned in a letter to the governor that a provision allowing the National Bank to buy government securities on the secondary market would de facto enable indirect monetary financing of the public sector.

European Commission officials also made it clear that they were following the adoption of these amendments with concern, as they could call the central bank’s autonomy into question.

On 2 August 2012, while the National Assembly was debating the amendments, Šoškić submitted an irrevocable resignation to the Speaker of Parliament, Nebojša Stefanović. He stated that the proposed amendments substantially undermined the central bank’s independence and opened the door to professional degradation and to decisions that could fuel economic and financial instability.

In his statement, he added that adopting such amendments could worsen Serbia’s position on international financial markets and slow down the European integration process. He also stressed that by resigning, he wanted to prevent political pressure for a change at the top of an independent institution from becoming the sole reason for passing a bad law.

The Serbian Progressive Party, for its part, said the governor had resigned for personal reasons, claiming that he had thereby preserved his right to compensation after leaving office.

The amendments were adopted under an urgent procedure on 6 August 2012. On the same day, Jorgovanka Tabaković, Vice-President of the Serbian Progressive Party, nominated by President Tomislav Nikolić, took office as governor. Šoškić thus left the post well before the end of his six-year term.

Major Achievements

Šoškić’s most significant achievements lie in academia. He is the author of the book “Securities: Portfolio Management and Investment Funds”, which is used both in teaching and in professional practice.

He also co-authored the books “Financial Markets and Institutions”, “Economic Statistics”, and “Stock Exchange Lexicon”. He has published more than 70 academic papers on banking, monetary economics, financial markets, and transition.

His international standing is further confirmed by his service on doctoral defense committees at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Stockholm University, and the Sorbonne.

Professionally, the high point of his career was his election as Governor of the National Bank of Serbia at the age of 43. Part of the public also regards his 2012 resignation as an example of a principled stand in defense of central bank independence.

Public Engagement After Leaving the National Bank

After his resignation, Šoškić returned full-time to the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. He also remained active in professional associations. He served on the Board of the Scientific Society of Economists of Serbia from 2006 to 2010, and again from 2014.

Since 2013, he has been a member of the Board of the Serbian Association of Economists. Since 2018, he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Central Bank of Montenegro, and he is also a member of the Serbian Academy of Economic Sciences.

In the years that followed, he frequently offered public analysis of the government’s economic policy. He spoke about GDP growth, public investment, public debt, and Serbia’s position relative to the economies of Central and Eastern Europe. In an interview with Forbes Serbia, he criticized the way the National Bank’s leadership conducts its inflation-targeting policy, pointing to the problem of high euroization.

His views also sparked direct disputes. In 2022, the National Bank of Serbia issued a statement challenging his claims and arguing that he was using data to downplay Serbia’s economic results.

In early 2022, the research center Demostat reported, citing unofficial sources, that his name was being considered as a possible opposition candidate for President of Serbia or Mayor of Belgrade. Šoškić said at the time that he had no political ambitions and that, had he had any, he would already have joined a party. He added that people with political experience should be the ones entering the political fight.

In June 2026, speaking as a professor, he publicly challenged announcements of record GDP growth, noting that Serbia had been lagging behind the Central and Eastern European average since 2012.

The Student List and the 2026 Parliamentary Elections

In September 2026, students involved in the blockades presented an electoral list of 250 candidates for the National Assembly, titled “Studentska lista – Studenti pobeđuju” (Student List – Students Are Winning). The list is headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović.

According to several media outlets, Dejan Šoškić is 27th on the list. Other well-known candidates include former basketball player Dejan Bodiroga, farmer Zlatko Kokanović, and actor Tihomir Stanić. His candidacy marks his first entry into an electoral contest after more than a decade of academic and public work outside party politics.

The candidacy provoked strong reactions. President Aleksandar Vučić repeatedly stated that the opposition would make Šoškić prime minister so that he could “destroy the dinar again.” Caretaker Finance Minister Siniša Mali challenged him to a televised debate on economic plans and then published a lengthy response to his claims about the growth of public debt.

During the same period, pro-government media published a series of articles critical of his tenure at the National Bank. In contrast, some newspapers ran opinion pieces describing his place on the list as a contribution of expertise. The snap parliamentary elections are scheduled for 25 October 2026.

Personal Life

Dejan Šoškić is the son of academician Branislav Šoškić, an economist and former President of the Presidency of SR Montenegro, who died in Belgrade in 2022.

There is no reliable publicly available information about other details of his private and family life. In his public appearances, Šoškić speaks almost exclusively about economic issues and keeps his private life out of the public eye.

He lives and works in Belgrade, where he has spent most of his professional career.

Interesting Facts

• The University of Belgrade named him the best student of his generation in 1989.
• His father, Branislav Šoškić, was President of the Presidency of SR Montenegro from 1985 to 1986.
• He was elected Governor of the National Bank of Serbia at the age of 43.
• He resigned almost four years before the end of his six-year term.
• Before becoming governor, he taught at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
• He appeared as a guest on the show “Da sam ja neko” (If I Were Someone), and the episode featuring him is available on YouTube.
• Although he said in 2022 that he had no political ambitions, four years later he became a parliamentary candidate.

Awards and Recognition

His most significant honor from his student years is the title of best student of his generation at the University of Belgrade, which he received in 1989. He later became a scholar of the Fulbright Program, one of the most prestigious academic exchange programs in the world.

His election as a member of the Serbian Academy of Economic Sciences is a recognition of his scholarly contribution. His membership in the Advisory Council of the Central Bank of Montenegro confirms his reputation beyond Serbia’s borders.

Information about state or other formal awards is not publicly available.

Legacy and Influence

Dejan Šoškić’s influence is most visible in the education of generations of economists at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. His textbooks on securities and financial markets have been used in teaching for decades.

In public life, his 2012 resignation remains one of the most frequently cited events in debates about central bank independence in Serbia. Supporters see it as an example of defending institutional autonomy, while critics judge his tenure by the dinar’s depreciation and the economic difficulties of that period.

His tenure remains the subject of sharp political and professional debate to this day. That alone shows that Šoškić has remained one of the most recognizable figures in Serbian economics more than a decade after leaving the National Bank.

Biography – Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Dejan Šoškić?

Dejan Šoškić is a Serbian economist, a full professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade, and Governor of the National Bank of Serbia from 2010 to 2012.

How old is Dejan Šoškić?

He was born on 15 March 1967, which makes him 59 years old in 2026.

Where was Dejan Šoškić born?

He was born in Belgrade, in what was then SR Serbia, part of SFR Yugoslavia.

When was Dejan Šoškić Governor of the National Bank of Serbia?

He served as governor from 29 July 2010 to 6 August 2012. Parliament elected him on 28 July 2010.

Why did Dejan Šoškić resign?

He resigned on 2 August 2012 over amendments to the Law on the National Bank of Serbia, which he believed substantially undermined the central bank’s independence and could fuel financial instability.

Who succeeded Dejan Šoškić as governor?

He was succeeded by Jorgovanka Tabaković, who took office as governor on 6 August 2012.

Who is Dejan Šoškić’s father?

His father was academician Branislav Šoškić, an economist, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, and President of the Presidency of SR Montenegro from 1985 to 1986.

What books has Dejan Šoškić written?

He is the author of “Securities: Portfolio Management and Investment Funds” and a co-author of “Financial Markets and Institutions,” “Economic Statistics,” and “Stock Exchange Lexicon.”

Is Dejan Šoškić on the Student List?

Yes. According to several media outlets, he is 27th on the “Studentska lista – Studenti pobeđuju” list for the parliamentary elections on 25 October 2026.

Is Dejan Šoškić a member of a political party?

According to available information, he is not a member of any political party. He served as governor as a non-partisan figure, and in 2022 he stated that he had no political ambitions.

Conclusion

Dejan Šoškić is an economist who has combined an academic career at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade with work in the country’s most important monetary institutions. As the best student of his generation, a Fulbright scholar, and the author of well-regarded textbooks, he built a reputation as an expert in financial markets.

His term as Governor of the National Bank of Serbia lasted just over two years and ended with his resignation in defense of the central bank’s independence. That period is still assessed in very different ways by politicians and experts alike.

After more than a decade of work outside party politics, in 2026 he became a candidate on the Student List. This opened a new chapter in the public life of one of Serbia’s best-known economists.