Baroness Nemat Minouche Shafik

DBE

Baroness Minouche Shafik DBE, HonFBA (DPhil Economics, 1989) is currently the Director of the London School of Economics, and President-elect at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Baroness Shafik was born in Alexandria, Egypt. When she was 4 years old, her family fled the country during President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalisation program. Her father, a scientist, found work in the United States, where he had done his PhD, and Shafik attended numerous schools in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics and politics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; a Master of Science in economics from the LSE; and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from St Antony’s College, Oxford University.

Shafik began her career at the World Bank, becoming the bank’s youngest-ever vice president at the age of 36. She later served as Permanent Secretary of the U.K.’s Department for International Development, where she led an overhaul in British foreign aid; as Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund during the European debt crisis; and as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, where she sat on all monetary, financial, and prudential policy committees and was responsible for a balance sheet of more than £500 billion.