Zdravko Marić

Early life and education

Zdravko Marić was born on February 3, 1977 in Slavonski Brod. After finishing elementary and high school in his hometown, Marić enrolled in Zagreb Faculty of Economics and Business from which he graduated finances in 2000. He gained his masters's degree in operational research in 2004 with thesis "Analysis of capital flows in transition countries through the impact on investment". In 2007, Marić attended executive education program „Public Financial Management" on the John F. Kennedy School of Government at the Harvard University. Marić gained his Ph.D. in 2008 from the Zagreb Faculty of Economics and Business with thesis "The impact of foreign direct investments on the productivity of Croatian companies".

Career

Zdravko Marić gained his first working experience as an assistant at the Zagreb Institute of Economics, where he worked from 2001 to 2006 on a number of scientific and commercial projects. During this period he worked as occasional lecturer at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management and the International Graduate Business School Zagreb. In year 2006, he became Assistant for Macroeconomic Analysis and Planning to Minister Ivan Šuker (HDZ). His main responsibility was to bring macroeconomic forecasting and work on the state budget, as well as direct cooperation with the European Commission in the field of economic dialogue. In year 2008, Marić was promoted to the position of state secretary, which gave him more responsibilities, including the overall state budget, the financial system and cooperation with international financial institutions (IMF, WB, IADB, EBRD, EIB, CEB). In addition, he became a leader of the working group for the Croatian negotiation process with the European Union for Chapter 33: Budget and financial regulations. After HDZ lost 2011 parliamentary election, Slavko Linić from SDP become new Minister. He offered Marić to stay on the position of state secretary, but he refused and got a job in the largest Croatian retail joint-stock company - Agrokor, where he worked as Executive Director for Strategy and Capital. Fields of his responsibilities were international finances, relations with investors and mergers and acquisitions. When HDZ managed to form coalition Government with Bridge of Independent Lists (MOST) after 2015 parliamentary election, Marić was elected as the new Minister of Finance instead of Ivan Šuker whose appointment was opposed by MOST, although MOST also opposed Marić's appointment at first. According to poll conducted in April 2016 by IPSOS Puls for Nova TV, Marić is considered the second most popular member of the Government after Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković.

On June 10, 2016 in light of the government crisis caused by a call to start motion of no confidence against First Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko due to his conflict of interest in an affair involving his wife Ana Šarić and Josip Petrović, special adviser and lobbyist of the MOL Group, a Hungarian oil corporation that gained control of Croatia's national oil company INA through a corruption scandal, and the insuring calls on the Prime Minister Orešković himself to resign, HDZ planned to nominate Marić as their candidate for the new Prime Minister pending the removal of Orešković. However, since it was clear that Marić would not get support of 76 MPs', the idea was abandoned which led to the dissolution of the Croatian Parliament, and new elections.

Personal life

Marić is married with two children. He speaks Croatian, English, and Italian fluently.