Hans Jörg Schelling

A native of Vorarlberg in western Austria, Schelling was a millionaire management consultant before entering politics. Over the course of his career, he made a fortune by building two separate home-furnishing chains into market leaders.[2]

During his time in office as Minister of Finance, Schelling was in charge of managing the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2016, he closed FIMBAG, the agency it set up in 2008 during the crisis to oversee state aid granted to troubled lenders.[3] He successfully pushed through legislation paving the way for the government to reach settlements with the creditors of defunct bank Hypo Alpe Adria and remove a millstone from the country's public finances.[4]

Under Schelling's leadership, Austria asked France in 2015 to hand over tax data linked to leaked client data of multinational banking and financial services company HSBC which had admitted failings in compliance at its Swiss private bank.[5] He also supported state-owned utility OMV in its negotiations on an asset swap with Gazprom and in 2016 took part in the ceremony, in which OMV agreed to exchange a stake in its Norwegian business for a stake in the Russian group’s Achimov oil and gas exploration blocks; the deal was later abandoned due to opposition from Norway.[6]

From 2015, Schelling chaired the group of EU Member States that want to adopt a common tax on financial transactions.[7]

In 2019, Schelling was nominated to serve as a member of the supervisory board at OMV;[8] shortly after, the nomination was withdrawn due to a potential breach of the Austrian government’s rules on a cooling-off period for former ministers.[9]

Schelling is married and has two daughters. He is a collector of modern art and enjoys spending time on Stiftsweingut Herzogenburg, the vineyard he operates in his adopted province of Lower Austria.[19]