Gita Gopinath, the No. 2 official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will step down from her role at the end of August 2025, the IMF confirmed in a statement on Monday. Gopinath will return to Harvard University as a professor of economics.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said a replacement for Gopinath will be announced “in due course.” Gopinath, who joined the IMF in 2019 as its first female Chief Economist, was promoted to First Deputy Managing Director in 2022.
“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.
A sudden, personal decision
Sources within the IMF said Gopinath’s decision came as a surprise to many and appeared to be her own initiative. There was no immediate reaction from the US Treasury, which usually recommends candidates for the first deputy managing director position due to the U.S. being the IMF’s largest shareholder.
During her time at the IMF, Gopinath played a leading role in guiding the institution through major global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She was known for her strong academic background and analytical work in areas like monetary and fiscal policy, debt, and international trade.
Managing Director Georgieva praised Gopinath as an “exceptional intellectual leader,” adding that she brought clarity and rigorous analysis at a time of global uncertainty.
Return to academia
Gopinath, an Indian-born US citizen, had previously taken leave from Harvard to join the IMF. In her statement, she expressed gratitude for the “once in a lifetime opportunity” and said she now looks forward to advancing research in international finance and macroeconomics while mentoring future economists.
“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 in a statement.
Gopinath joined the IMF as Chief Economist in January 2019. Before that, she was a professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard.