Since his appointment as Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has been pledging to bring more women into the upper echelons of the bank. By creating the opportunities to “grow top female economists all the way through the ranks,” as he once told the BBC, the bank would be able to appoint more female members of the monetary policy committee in particular.
Though Shafik is relatively unknown in the UK, and has maintained a fairly low profile throughout her long career, the appointment is already being praised
And now Carney has started to follow through on his word, appointing Nemat ‘Minouche’ Shafik as the deputy governor for markets and banking. Though Shafik is relatively unknown in the UK, and has maintained a fairly low profile throughout her long career, the appointment is already being praised.
Though Shafik was born in Egypt she has joint UK and US nationality and has spent most of her career in international institutions. She comes to the BoE from the IMF, where she spent three years as managing director overseeing work on Europe and the Middle East and managing the fund’s £1bn administrative budget.
Shafik has previously spoken about how her early life in Egypt shaped her future career. “When you live in a poor country, you’re surrounded by poverty; and so that natural interest in why some people have and other people don’t is always there,” she told Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.
“I guess the particular angle that I have on development comes from the fact that my family was nationalised, and when that occurred, I left as a child and was raised in the US and didn’t go back to Egypt until I was a teenager. But that experience of nationalisation and struggling with the role of the state trying to take resources, to redistribute them, but at the same time not being very successful at it was a part of my childhood.”
Shafik will be replacing Paul Fisher from August 1, along with a number of other new appointments. Carney has described the reshuffle as a “root-and-branch”, during a speech at the Cass Business School. Shafik’s role has been freshly created as response to allegation of forex rate rigging, and in an attempt to bolster the BoE’s approach to market intelligence.
Among other appointments, Victoria Cleland will be replacing Chris Salmon as Director of Banknotes and Chief Cashier, and her name and signature will be featured on banknotes from August. Carney has also appointed Anthony Habgood as the chairman of the BoE’s supervisory body, in a role designed to oversee Carney’s governance and the bank’s compliance standards.
Carney told the BBC that “these appointments result in a well-rounded senior management team at the Bank – one that will set the direction for an ambitious agenda of transformation.”