International Monetary Fund

Alexander Gibbs was appointed Executive Director for the United Kingdom on June 27, 2007. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Gibbs served as the Head of Globalization and International Institutions (1997-2000) as well as the Head of Tax Policy (2000-2002) for Her Majesty's Treasury, United Kingdom. During this period he was also the Alternate Executive Director for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the United Kingdom. From 2002-2007, Mr. Gibbs was the Economic Counselor for the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Washington, DC. Alexander Gibbs is also the Executive Director for the United Kingdom at the International Monetary Fund.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn assumed office as the tenth Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on November 1, 2007. Upon being selected by the IMF's Board of Executive Directors, Mr. Strauss-Kahn indicated that he will press ahead with reform of the 185-member country institution that helps oversee the global economy. Prior to taking up his position at the IMF, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was a member of the French National Assembly and Professor of Economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. From 2001 to 2007, he was reelected three times to the National Assembly, and in 2006, he ran for the Socialist Party's nomination for the French presidential election. In 2000 and 2001, he taught economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and was named visiting professor at Stanford University. He was also a personal advisor to the Secretary General of the OECD. Earlier, Mr. Strauss-Kahn served as Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry of France from June 1997 to November 1999. In this capacity, he managed the launch of the Euro. He also represented France on the Board of Governors of a number of international financial institutions, including the IMF. Between 1993 and 1997, he was in the private sector as a corporate lawyer. From 1991 to 1993, Mr. Strauss-Kahn served as Minister of Industry and International Trade, during which time he participated in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. Mr. Strauss-Kahn began his career as assistant professor, then professor of economics at the University of Paris where he was tenured in 1978. He was then appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Economic Planning Agency (1981-1986). He was elected Deputy (Member of Parliament) to the National Assembly (1986), where he chaired the Finance Commission from 1988 to 1991. Mr. Strauss-Kahn holds a PhD in economics from the University of Paris. He also graduated in law, in business administration, in political studies, and in statistics. As an academic, his research fields include household saving behavior, public finance, and social policy. A French national, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, on April 25, 1949 and spent his early years in Morocco.

Jonathan D. Ostry is Deputy Director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. His responsibilities include: multilateral exchange rate surveillance; international financial architecture and financial globalization issues; country insurance; structural reform and economic performance; emerging market vulnerabilities exercise. He supervises work of three of the department's six divisions spanning surveillance, and policy and research work.

A citizen of France, Olivier Blanchard has spent his professional life in Cambridge, U.S. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, where he has been since then. He is the Class of 1941 Professor of Economics, and past Chair of the Economics Department. He is currently on leave from MIT, as Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund. He is a macroeconomist, who has worked on a wide set of issues, from the role of monetary policy, to the nature of speculative bubbles, to the nature of the labor market and the determinants of unemployment, to transition in former communist countries. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations. He is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks in macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer, one at the undergraduate level. He is a fellow and Council member of the Econometric Society, a past vice president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Sciences.

Sean Hagan is General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department at the International Monetary Fund. In this capacity, Mr. Hagan advises the Fund's management, Executive Board and membership on all legal aspects of the Fund's operations, including its regulatory, advisory and lending functions. Mr. Hagan has published extensively on both the law of the Fund and a broad range of legal issues relating to the prevention and resolution of financial crisis, with a particular emphasis on insolvency and the restructuring of debt, including sovereign debt. Prior to beginning work at the IMF, Mr. Hagan was in private practice, first in New York and subsequently in Tokyo. Mr. Hagan received his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center and also received a Masters of Science in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Shirley Siegel is Director of the Human Resources Department at the International Monetary Fund. In this capacity, Ms. Siegel works under the overall guidance of the Managing Director and in close collaboration with the other members of the Fund's management team. She is responsible for setting the Fund's human resources strategy; advising management on human resources issues, and consulting with departments on human resources policies and priorities. Prior to working at the IMF, Ms. Siegel was Assistant Deputy Minister in charge of Human Resources (Civilian) for the Canadian Department of National Defense. Her more than 30 years of experience in the Canadian Public Service also included positions as Director of Human Resource Operations for the Department of Natural Resources, Executive Director, Senior Level Retention and Compensation at the Treasury Board Secretariat, and Vice President, Human Resources at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Most recently, she has been a consultant to senior management of various public sector organizations and agencies in Canada (e.g., the Canadian Red Cross, federal departments of Finance and Agriculture). Ms. Siegel graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa.

Arthur Mann holds a Ph.D. in economics. Most of Dr. Mann's consulting experience has been in the areas of taxation, tax reform, and public expenditure analysis. He has more than 25 years of international consulting experience with such organizations as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Labor Office. His participation in more than 70 consulting studies/missions has taken him to numerous Latin American and Caribbean countries, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has worked on DevTech projects in Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico on a variety of fiscal topics: municipal and property tax reform, decentralization, tax administration benchmarking, tax expenditures, tax incidence, and tax collection costs. He is fluent in Spanish.

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Brian Wesley Ames is a Division Chief in the African Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) based Washington, D.C. He has over twenty years experience in international and corporate finance. His work experience and educational background has spanned both public and private sectors. At the IMF, he has worked as an international finance and development economist for 15 years, specializing in Africa, but with experience in Asia as well. With his focus on low-income countries and economic development, he has worked extensively with both governments and the international non-government organization community in the global effort to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He is also a Board Member of the Global Sustainable Development Project, a global effort to achieve sustainable development in both low-income and industrial countries worldwide. His private sector work experience has involved serving as President of Advanced Scientific Applications, Ltd. (a technology transfer company), President of Intercontinental Travel Services, Inc. (a full service travel entity), and Political and Economic Analyst for the Capital Group, Inc. (Investment Management). Mr. Ames holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University), and B.A.'s (with honors) in economics and political science from Claremont Men's College.

Charles McPherson has been a global faculty member at the Centre since 2006, teaching an annual course on Extractive Industries Revenue Management. Mr. McPherson is a Tax Policy Adviser in the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund, with particular responsibilities for fiscal and financial policies in natural resource-rich countries. Prior to taking up his position at the Fund in 2007, he was Senior Adviser on Oil and Gas at the World Bank. His work at the Bank focused on petroleum sector reform and sector lending activities in a wide range of countries.He also managed the Bank's participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Before joining the Bank, Mr. McPherson spent 15 years at two international oil companies, holding a variety of senior positions in international negotiations and government agreements. He received his B.A. in economics and political science from McGill University, M.Sc. in international economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. He is a Canadian and British citizen.

David has widespread experience in banking and financial markets. Former Managing Director of Countrywide Banking Corporation, he is currently Chairman of Aotea Centre Board. He is also a Director of AMI Insurance Ltd, Strategic Finance Ltd, and a number of private companies. He consults widely and is a technical advisor to the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

John Eddy is IT Team Leader at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington D.C. He is responsible for all aspects of the in-plant production print and departmental printer environments. He recently implemented internal chargeback for production printing and is currently working on a fulfillment system for the organization.

Luc Laeven is a Senior Economist in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to this, he was a Senior Financial Economist at the World Bank and worked at ABN Amro Bank. His research focuses on international banking and corporate finance issues and has been published in top academic journals, including the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics. He has also co-edited a book on Systemic Financial Crises: Containment and Resolution published by Cambridge University Press. He is a Research Affiliate of the Financial Economics Programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London.

Mr. Manuel Vasquez is a Technical Assistance Advisor with the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. USA. His mainstream activities at the Fund involve the development and implementation of the IMF's programs relating to Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Terrorist Financing and the assessment of offshore financial centers. Prior to joining the IMF in 2001, Mr. Vasquez was Financial Sector Advisor with the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Programme based in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago where he implemented that organization's financial sector anti-money laundering program in the Caribbean region. Prior to assuming his post with the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Programme.

Michael Gapen is an Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C. During his tenure with the IMF, he has worked in the Western Hemisphere Department, the European Department, the International Capital Markets Department, the IMF Institute, and the Finance Department. He has participated in missions to Brazil, the Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Iceland, Panama, Suriname, and the United Kingdom. He has provided training and consulting in economic management and financial analysis to officials of the IMF's member countries in the Joint Vienna Institute, the Singapore Training Institute, and the Joint China IMF Training Program in Dalian, China. His current responsibilities include the implementation and supervision of investment strategies for US$22 billion in assets of investment accounts and trusts that support the Fund's budget and concessional lending. Michael has also held positions of Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Johns Hopkins University and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where he taught courses on international finance and open economy macroeconomics. Prior to joining the IMF, he was employed with Van Kampen Investments, a Chicago based investment company with over $100 billion in assets under management and a wholly owned subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Department of Economics at Indiana University. His research has focused on international finance, macroeconomics, monetary and fiscal policy, financial markets, and mathematical and quantitative methods. In particular, his recent work examines the influence of remittances on economic performance, the evaluation of credit risk and risk transfer, the design and use of indexed debt contracts, optimal experimentation and learning with monetary policy, and nonlinear dynamic general equilibrium models. His published articles have appeared in academic journals and he has contributed chapters in several books.

Stijn Claessens is Assistant Director in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund where he leads the Financial Studies Division. He is also a Professor of International Finance Policy at the University of Amsterdam where he taught for three years (2001-2004). Mr. Claessens, a Dutch national, holds a Ph.D. in business economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1986) and M.A. from Erasmus University, Rotterdam (1984). He started his career teaching at New York University business school (1987) and then worked earlier for fourteen years at the World Bank in various positions (1987-2001). Prior to his current position, he was Senior Adviser in the Financial and Private Sector Vice-Presidency of the World Bank (from 2004-2006). His policy and research interests are firm finance; corporate governance; internationalization of financial services; and riskmanagement. Over his career, Mr. Claessens has provided policy advice to emerging markets in Latin America and Asia and to transition economies. His research has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, and Quarterly Journal of Economics. He had edited several books, including International Financial Contagion (Kluwer 2001), Resolution of Financial Distress (World Bank Institute 2001), and A Reader in International Corporate Finance (World Bank). He is a fellow of the London-based CEPR.