Bruno Batavia holds an MPA from Columbia University and a LL.B from PUC-Rio.

Bruno brings more than 13 years of experience working with innovation at Brazil’s Central Bank, where he led studies and initiatives with a particular focus on emerging technologies.

He was closely involved with Brazil’s LIFT (Financial and Technological Innovations Laboratory) – an award winning ‘innovation ecosystem’ – and the ‘LIFT Challenge Real Digital’ (named after the Real, Brazil’s national currency) as Brazil takes steps towards the introduction of a CBDC.

He was a member of the CBDC Working Group, the Tokenization Working Group, and the Executive Management Committee of the Lift Challenge Real Digital (CBDC Lab) at BCB.

Bruno served as the co-editor for workshops and publications focused on CBDCs, crypto assets, and tokenization. He is the author of multiple articles and books on these topics, including the BCB’s first-ever working paper on digital currencies.

Most recently, he served as the Deputy Project Manager for the Digital Real (Drex) Project, Brazil’s CBDC initiative, which earned the #1 global ranking in finance and #7 in the overall rank of Project Management Institute’s (PMI) “Top 50 Most Influential Projects of 2022”. Earlier in his career, he co-authored the BCB’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policy framework and served as the founding Chair of BCB’s ESG Committee, driving the ESG agenda across the organization.

Bruno has been featured in the Global Government Fintech’s ’23 People to Watch in 2023’—a list that includes influential figures from government agencies, central banks, regulators, and multilateral organizations.

He is married and has a daughter and a son. Bruno has been practicing jiu-jitsu for more than twenty years, enjoys snowboarding, writing, and spending time outdoors with his family.