The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that its First Deputy Managing Director (FDMD), Gita Gopinath, will step down from her position at the end of August to return to Harvard University.
Gopinath, who joined the Fund in 2019 as Chief Economist and became the IMF’s number two official in January 2022, will assume a new role as the inaugural Gregory and Ania Coffey Professor of Economics at Harvard’s Department of Economics.
Announcing the move, IMF’s Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva said, “Gita has been an outstanding colleague an exceptional intellectual leader, dedicated to the mission and members of the Fund, and a fabulous manager, always showing genuine care for the professional standing and wellbeing of our staff.
“She came to the Fund as a highly respected academic in macroeconomics and international finance. Admiration for Gita only grew through her time at the Fund, where her analytical rigor was paired with practical policy advice to the membership during an especially challenging period, which included the pandemic, wars, the cost-of-living crisis, and major shifts in the global trading system.
“Gita steered the Fund’s analytical and policy work with clarity, striving for the highest standards of rigorous analysis at a complex time of high uncertainty and rapidly changing global economic environment. She oversaw the Fund’s multilateral surveillance and analytical work on fiscal and monetary policy, debt, and international trade.
“Gita made a strong contribution to systemic country surveillance and to Fund country programs, including those for Argentina and Ukraine. As a key member of my senior leadership team, Gita represented the Fund with integrity and fortitude in many international fora, notably the G-7 and G-20.”
Noting that Gopinath was the first female Chief Economist in IMF history, Georgieva said as Chief Economist, Gita ensured that the World Economic Outlook remained the preeminent report on the global economy, an especially impressive achievement during the Covid-19 pandemic which presented an unprecedented challenge to its membership.
“Gita also spearheaded the Fund’s work on the Integrated Policy Framework (IPF), which provides a robust analytical framework to help countries determine the appropriate policies for macroeconomic and financial stability.
“She also co-authored the Pandemic Plan on how to end the COVID19 crisis—a landmark intellectual contribution which has widely been hailed as filling an important global gap by setting targets to vaccinate the world at feasible cost,” she noted.
Commenting on her move to Harvard, Gopinath expressed gratitude for her time at the IMF, first as Chief Economist and then as First Deputy Managing Director.
“I have had the privilege of working closely with the IMF’s brilliant and committed staff, colleagues in management, the Executive Board, and country authorities.
“I am especially thankful to Kristalina and her predecessor, Christine Lagarde, for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve the IMF’s membership during a period of unprecedented challenges.
“I now return to my roots in academia, where I look forward to continuing to push the research frontier in international finance and macroeconomics to address global challenges, and to training the next generation of economists.”
