Gita Gopinath

Gita Gopinath
First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
Assumed office
21 January 2022
PresidentKristalina Georgieva
Preceded byGeoffrey Okamoto
Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund
In office
1 January 2019 – 21 January 2022
PresidentKristalina Georgieva
Preceded byMaurice Obstfeld
Succeeded byPierre-Olivier Gourinchas
Personal details
Born (1971-12-08) 8 December 1971 (age 52)
Kolkata, India
NationalityAmerican
SpouseIqbal Singh Dhaliwal
RelationsA. K. Gopalan Nambiar
Children1
Education
AwardsPravasi Bharatiya Samman
Academic career
Institution
Doctoral
advisor

Gita Gopinath (born 8 December 1971)[1] is an Indian-American economist who has served as the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), since 21 January 2022. She had previously served as chief economist of the IMF between 2019 and 2022.

Prior to joining the IMF, Gopinath had a two-decade-long career as an academic including at the economics department of Harvard University where she was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics (2005–2022) and earlier an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2001–05) . She is also a co-director of the international finance and macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has earlier worked as the honorary economic adviser to the chief minister of Kerala.

Gopinath was appointed as chief economist of the IMF in October 2018 by its managing director Christine Lagarde. In an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, she named the worldwide recession of 2020 as "The Great Lockdown". In December 2021, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva appointed her the first deputy managing director of the IMF, which is the organization's number-two position.

  1. ^ Prathima Nandakumar (15 October 2018). "Gita Gopinath: From a middle-class Indian girl to IMF's chief economist". The Week. Archived from the original on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 21 January 2020.