- Gita Gopinath will step down as IMF First Deputy Managing Director in August
- Gopinath will return to Harvard University as a professor of economics
- Gopinath was the IMF's first woman Chief Economist from October 2018
Indian-origin economist Gita Gopinath will step down as the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of August. She will return to Harvard University as a professor of economics, the IMF said on Monday.
Calling her stint at the IMF a "once in a lifetime opportunity," Ms Gopinath thanked IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and her predecessor, Christine Lagarde, who appointed her as chief economist.
"I now return to my roots in academia," she said, "to continue pushing the research frontier in international finance and macroeconomics."
Who Is Gita Gopinath?
Gita Gopinath was born on December 8, 1971 in Kolkata, India, into a Malayali Hindu Nair family from Kannur, Kerala. She is related to the late communist party politician A K Gopalan.
Ms Gopinath studied at Nirmala Convent School in Mysuru and earned her BA in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College in 1992, followed by an MA from the Delhi School of Economics in 1994. She received a second MA from the University of Washington in 1996 and completed her PhD in Economics at Princeton in 2001.
In 2001, she joined the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as an assistant professor. In 2005, she moved to Harvard University's economics department, where she later became the John Zwanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics.
Gita Gopinath became the first woman to serve as Chief Economist of the IMF in October 2018. During the COVID-19 crisis, she co-authored the Fund's "Pandemic Paper," which led to the formation of a Multilateral Task Force with the World Bank, WHO, and WTO.
In June 2021, she joined the World Bank-IMF High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery. The IMF promoted her to First Deputy Managing Director in December 2021. She also co-directed the International Finance and Macroeconomics Programme at NBER and advised the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York.
Ms Gopinath served as economic adviser to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. She was appointed to this honorary role in July 2016.
Ms Gopinath is a naturalised American citizen and holds Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status.
She is married to Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal, a classmate from the Delhi School of Economics, and they have a son named Rohil, born in 2002.
