People: World Bank appoints Gill as chief economist

Washington, DC: The World Bank announced on July 21 that it had chosen Indermit Gill as its new chief economist, effective September 1.

Gill will succeed Carmen Reinhart, who has been chief economist since June 2020. Reinhart left the position on July 1 to return to academic work at Harvard University. Gill will also be senior vice-president for development economics.

Gill, the second Indian national to serve as World Bank chief economist, holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. He has been vice-president of equitable growth, finance and institutions at the World Bank since 2021. He previously worked at the institution between 1993 and 2016, holding several senior economics positions.

Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University. He was also a nonresident senior fellow at think-tank the Brookings Institution.

On Twitter, Gill said Reinhart “left big shoes to fill. I’m honored by the opportunity to follow in her footsteps”.

Japan: The Japanese government has appointed two new members to the Bank of Japan’s policy board.

Hajime Takata and Naoki Tamura began five-year terms on the nine-member board on July 24.

Takata had a long career as a research economist in the private sector before joining the BOJ. He holds a master’s in development economics from Oxford University and was head of research at Okasan Securities.

Tamura is a lawyer by training, with a degree from Kyoto University. He spent 37 years with the conglomerate firm Sumitomo, and then Sumitomo Mitsui bank, serving as head of retail banking between 2018 and 2021. He was serving in a senior advisory role when the government chose him for the BOJ board.

Washington, DC: The International Monetary Fund announced the upcoming retirements of corporate services director Jennifer Lester and communications director Gerry Rice on July 22.

Lester, a Jamaican lawyer and diplomat, began working at the IMF in 1997. She holds a law degree from Georgetown University and was a Jamaican diplomat between 1979 and 1991, including a stint at Jamaica’s embassy to the US.

Starting at the IMF in 1997, she began her career there as a legal counsel to the fund, rising to become assistant general counsel of the administrative law unit. From 2016 to 2020, she was deputy director of corporate services and facilities, becoming the head of this department in 2020. She will retire from the IMF on October 31.

Rice has been communications director since December 2011, taking the role a few months after Christine Lagarde became managing director. He was deputy communications director between 2006 and 2011. Prior to joining the IMF, he worked at the World Bank for 25 years, rising to become that institution’s communications director.

Rice holds a PhD in history from the University of Glasgow, and his thesis was later published as The Bold Experiment: John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps in 1986. A native of Glasgow, he did research on the Scottish economy for the first devolved Scottish governments between 1999 and 2000.