Gita Gopinath to step down as IMF deputy chief, return to Harvard in August

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva will announce Gopinath’s successor “in due course,” the fund added.

Gopinath, who first joined the IMF in 2019 as chief economist — becoming the first woman to hold that position — was elevated to the role of first deputy managing director in January 2022. She is an Indian-born US citizen.

Her decision to leave the Fund appears to have been initiated by her and took many insiders by surprise.

She will return to Harvard University as a professor of economics. Gopinath had taken leave from the university to join the IMF.

Her exit provides an opportunity for the US Treasury — which manages America’s dominant shareholding in the IMF — to recommend a successor.

While European nations traditionally select the IMF’s managing director, the first deputy role is typically proposed by the United States.

The timing of Gopinath’s move comes amid US President Donald Trump’s aggressive push to reshape the global economic order, including the imposition of high tariffs on imports in a bid to end chronic US trade deficits.

Harvard, where Gopinath is returning, has recently faced criticism from the Trump administration over its governance, hiring, and admissions policies.

Praising Gopinath’s contributions, Georgieva said she joined the Fund as a well-regarded academic and proved to be “an exceptional intellectual leader” during periods of global turbulence, including the pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Gita steered the Fund’s analytical and policy work with clarity, striving for the highest standards of rigorous analysis at a complex time of high uncertainty and rapidly changing global economic environment,” Georgieva said.

At the IMF, Gopinath oversaw multilateral surveillance and analysis across areas such as fiscal and monetary policy, debt, and international trade.

In her own statement, Gopinath expressed gratitude for what she called a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to serve at the IMF, thanking both Georgieva and her predecessor Christine Lagarde, who appointed her as chief economist.

“I now return to my roots in academia, where I look forward to continuing to push the research frontier in international finance and macroeconomics to address global challenges, and to training the next generation of economists,” she said.