Rosen Plevneliev

Rosen Asenov Plevneliev is a Bulgarian entrepreneur, engineer and politician, 4th President of the Republic of Bulgaria (January 22, 2012 – January 22, 2017). Minister of Regional Development and Public Works (July 27, 2009 – September 9, 2011) in the first government of Boyko Borisov.

He was born on May 14, 1964 in the family of teachers Slavka and Asen Plevnelievi. He is a descendant of Bulgarian refugees from Plevnia, Dramsko, who moved to Bulgaria in 1913. When he was ten years old, his family moved to Blagoevgrad.

From 1982 to 1984, he completed regular military service at the School for Reserve Officers in Pleven and at the Computing Center of the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army in Sofia.

In the period 1984 – 1989, he graduated from the Higher Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Institute in Sofia, majoring in “computing technology”. He speaks German and English.

Immediately after completing higher education, he started working as a research assistant at the Institute of Microprocessor Technology, but the political changes in Bulgaria left him without a job.

He started developing his own business in 1990, when he founded and started developing the company “Iris International” AD – the first construction company in Bulgaria with an ISO 9001 certificate, received in October 1999. The company works on more than 80 construction sites in Germany and participated in the execution of finishing works of projects such as Reichstag, Commerzbank – Frankfurt, Munich Airport, Dusseldorf Airport, etc.

Some of her landmark projects for Bulgaria are the reconstruction of the Sheraton hotel in Sofia, the construction of the central office of BNP Paribas in Sofia, the Daimler-Chrysler center in Sofia, Business Park Sofia, etc.

In 1994, he founded and manages “Lin Bulgaria” Ltd., a company specializing in dry construction. After 1998, he participated in the management of the Bulgarian divisions of the German company “Lindner” (“Lindner Iris Immobilien”, “Iris International”, “Lindner Bulgaria”, “Lindner Immobilen Management”), working in the field of development, management and investments in Real Estate. He manages the company’s largest project in the country – Sofia Business Park. Started in 1999, it is the largest privately financed real estate project in Bulgaria and among the largest business parks in Southeast Europe. In 2003, the Residential Park Sofia project was started – a residential complex near Business Park Sofia.[5]

Since 2007, he has been a member of the management board of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria. In the same year, he became a member of the board of directors of the American Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of trustees of the For Our Children Foundation.

Plevneliev won the presidential elections in 2011 as a candidate for president of GERB in the runoff. In the second round, he received 52.56% of the support according to the intermediate results of the CEC. On January 19, 2012, Plevneliev and Margarita Popova were sworn in as president and vice president of the Republic of Bulgaria before the National Assembly. He took office on January 22, 2012, when the mandate of President Georgi Parvanov expired.