Gita Gopinath set to leave IMF in January 2022, return to Harvard: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva

Gita Gopinath, the first-ever woman chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)is set to leave her post in January 2022. This was announced by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on October 19, 2021.

The Indian-American will return to Harvard University as planned, as per IMF.IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in a statement highlighting Gopinath’s “tremendous” impact on the IMF’s work said, "“Gita also won the respect and admiration of colleagues in the Research Department, across the Fund, and throughout the membership for leading analytically rigorous work and policy-relevant projects with high impact and influence."

The 49-year-old had made history by becoming the first-ever woman chief economist of IMF when she joined the fund in October 2018. She has played a major role in leading IMF's analytical research, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why is Gita Gopinath leaving IMF?

Gita Gopinath is currently on a public service leave of absence from the university. The leave, which was already extended by one year, is scheduled to end soon. She will continue to be a part of IMF to oversee the release of its next World Economic Outlook forecasts in January 2022.

Gita Gopinath's background

•Gita Gopinath was appointed as the Chief Economist of IMF in October 2018. Before that, she taught International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. 

•She had been named as a young global leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011. Gopinath was born in India to Malayalee parents and did her schooling in Kolkata and graduated from the Lady Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. 

•She did double Masters from Delhi School of Economics and Washington University. She later did her Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and then joined as an Assistant Professor the University of Chicago in 2001 before moving to Harvard in 2005. 

•She became a tenured Professor at Harvard in 2010, creating history yet again by becoming the third woman in the history of Harvard to be a tenured professor at its esteemed economics department. She was also the first Indian since Amartya Sen to hold that position.

•She was honoured with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India in 2019. The award is the highest honour conferred upon an Indian-origin person.