Biography

Jakov Milatović was born in Podgorica on December 7, 1986. He completed primary, secondary school, and university in Podgorica. As a recipient of a U.S. government scholarship, he spent one academic year at Illinois State University. After that, he spent one semester at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien) as a scholarship holder of the Austrian government. Under the sponsorship of the European Commission, he spent one academic year at La Sapienza University in Rome. He completed his master’s studies in economics at the University of Oxford, where he was a scholarship holder of the British government.

He attended programs organized by the United Nations in New York, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Germany, the Embassy of Montenegro in Rome, and the Office for International Cooperation at the Faculty of Economics in Podgorica. He also attended the Oxbridge Academic program at Oxford, a series of programs at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in London, as well as at the London School of Economics (LSE). He furthered his education at Peking University, the University of Belgrade, and the Leadership Academy of Stanford University.

He has worked in the banking sector both in Montenegro and abroad. In the department for economic and political analysis at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), he worked on economic analysis for the Southeastern Europe region and the Western Balkans. From 2018 to 2020, he worked in Bucharest as the EBRD's lead economic analyst for Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bulgaria. In the fall of 2022, he was a visiting lecturer at the Luxembourg School of Business. He is the author of several expert papers and co-author of two books.

In December 2020, he was appointed Minister of Economic Development in the 42nd Government of Montenegro. In June 2022, he founded the "Europe Now!" Movement and is one of its leaders. After the success of the list he led in the Podgorica local elections, he ran in the presidential elections. He assumed office as President of Montenegro on May 20, 2023.

He speaks English, Italian, and Spanish. He is married and a father of three children.