Who are the new faces in the Georgian Cabinet?

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili announced this morning that a major reshuffle will take place in the Cabinet of Ministers. Some ministries will be merged while several ministers will be replaced.

There will be two new names in the Cabinet. One is Mikheil Chkhenkeli as Education Minister and the other is Mamuka Bakhtadze as Finance Minister.

Below are the profiles of these two new officials.

Mikheil Chkhenkeli – Minister of Education and Science

Mikheil Chkhenkeli has been vice-rector of Tbilisi State University since November of 2016. He is well-known in academic circles both in Georgia and abroad.

He is a mathematician who did his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.

Throughout the past 20 years, Chkhenkeli has taught at leading universities in the US. He holds multiple awards for scientific and academic works, including a number of teaching awards from the University of Pennsylvania, Goldman Sachs Foundation prize, scientific and research grants and scholarships.

Presenting Chkhenkeli as a new minister, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said today that he delivers lectures in the United States and has close professional ties with number of leading universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, etc.

Chkhenkeli is one of the founders of Tbilisi State Georgian-American University (GAU).

"Education will be an utterly important component of the Government’s four-point reform plan and the top priority of our ministry will be taking care of education and science”, Chkhenkeli said after he met with Kvirikashvili earlier today.

"Each and every young person must feel that the state is taking care of them. We have very talented youth and talented new generation and they need support to create the environment where their potential will be fully realised”, he added.

Mikheil Chkhenkeli (L) and Mamuka Bakhtadze met with PM Kvirikashvili today. Photo: PM's press office.

Mamuka Bakhtadze – Minister of Finance

Mamuka Bakhtadze, 32, is the current Director General at Georgian Railway - the national railway company of Georgia. He has been in this role since 2013.

Presenting him today, PM Kvirikashvili said that Bakhtadze is "a well-educated and experienced manager who has shown tangible results while running Georgian Railway”.

The PM said that it was under Bakhtadze’s management that Georgian Railway was integrated into the Silk Road Corridor and active work was launched on the creation of the new Persian Gulf-Black Sea transit corridor, modern management systems were adopted and the railroad fleet was rejuvenated.

Bakhtadze holds a doctoral degree in technical sciences, also a master’s degree in business administration from the INSEAD Business School in France.

He also graduated from Tbilisi State University and the Georgian Technical University.

"I consider [being named as a minister] as a huge responsibility. It is even greater responsibility that I will have to lead a successful ministry”, Bakhtadze said, praising the recent projects of the Finance Ministry.

"We will continue these positive trends [and] our main approach will be less bureaucracy and more efficiency,” he added.