MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gopinath leaves IMF to return to Harvard

Caputo extrañará especialmente a Gopinath en Buenos Aires

International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath announced this week that she will be resigning from her position at the end of August to return to teaching at Harvard University. “I have decided to return to my academic roots,” she explained.

The official took stock of her work at the Fund. “I have had the privilege of working closely with the brilliant and committed staff of the IMF, colleagues in management, the Executive Board, and national authorities,” she said. She added: “I am returning to my roots in academia, where I hope to continue pushing the frontier of research in international finance and macroeconomics to address global challenges and train the next generation of economists.”

“I am especially grateful to Kristalina Georgieva and her predecessor, Christine Lagarde. I have had the privilege of working closely with the brilliant and committed staff of the IMF, her colleagues in management, the Executive Board, and national authorities,” Gopinath wrote.

Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva praised the work of her number two: “Gita has been an exceptional colleague, an exceptional intellectual leader, dedicated to the Fund's mission and members, and a fabulous manager, who always shows genuine care for the professional standing and well-being of our staff.”

She also highlighted that “admiration for Gita only grew during her time at the Fund, where her analytical rigor was combined with practical policy advice for members during a particularly difficult period, which included the pandemic, wars, the cost-of-living crisis, and major changes in the global trading system.”

Gopinath, who joined the credit agency in 2019 as chief economist, will also be missed in Buenos Aires. She kept a close relationship with the technical staff that monitors the current program with Argentina. In February 2024, she even visited the country to meet with President Javier Milei and Economy Minister Luis Toto Caputo, who wrote on X: “Thank you for your hard work and support for our economic program over the past year and a half. We also deeply appreciate your continued trust in the team. We wish you all the best at Harvard.”