A couple of decades ago, being a woman, especially someone working or seeking to work in the financial/economic sector, was a challenge in its own.
However, things have changed in recent times. Woman are breaking stereotypes, achieving top positions as officials and leading the world to a new tomorrow.
Woman who are changing the world, one step at a time.
Funding Dreams – Gita Gopinath
In October 2018, an India-born and a woman, Gita Gopinath was appointed as the chief economist of the International Monetary fund (IMF). She’s the second Indian to hold the position, after ex-RBI governor Raghuram Rajan.
Born in 1971, in then Calcutta, her upbringing happened in Mysore at Nirmala Convent school since the age of nine. Then she joined Mahajan PU College in Mysuru to pursue science but later moved to study economics. She studied economics at one of the top colleges in India, Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi. She continued her journey in economics at Delhi School of Economics (DSE) and later procured an M.A in the same from the University of Washington. It was during her days in DSE, she met her now husband Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal, with whom she now has a son. She was also an athlete, who gave it all up to focus on economics to finally get a PhD in the same from Princeton University.
She started working as an Assistant professor at University in Chicago in 2001. Later she became a tenured professor from 2010 at Harvard University where she is now the Professor of InternationalStudiess and Economics. She is the third woman and the second Indian after Amartya Sen to be made a permanent member of the Hardware University Economics department. In 2016, she was appointed by the Kerala Government in India as the financial advisor to CM Pinarayi Vijayan, from which she stepped down in 2018.
Banking on the best – Pinelopi Koujainou Goldberg
Hard work and will power pushes one to achieve their goals. Pinelopi Koujainou Goldberg, the chief economist of World Bank, brings that statement to life. She’s just the second woman and first Greek to hold the position.
After finishing her schooling in German High school of Athens, she started studying in Germany for a Diploma from the University of Freiburg. It was during her course that she had applied for an internship at the World Bank, where she faced rejection. This is what pushed her to work harder, leave her hometown to pursue a Ph.D. in the US from Stanford University.
Since then, She’s been a faculty member at Princeton and Columbia University, worked as a professor of economics at Yale University and been the Editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review. Moreover, she’s received multiple awards and fellowships like the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Sloan research fellowships.
Well, is there any better way to handle rejection?
Reconstructing Change – Beata Javorcik
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development recently got its first woman chief economist. The woman in the news, Beata Javorcik, has been quite a few firsts in life before adding this achievement to her list.
She’s a polish national, did her Ph.D. from Yale University and then became the woman to hold a Statutory Professorship in Economics at Oxford University. She’s also the Managing director of the quarterly ‘Economics Policy’ along with being a Director of the International Trade Programme at the center for economic policy research in London.
Holding the top and important posts as Advisors is not an easy task. There is constant pressure, deadlines and tasks that need to be fulfilled.
Well, I am glad we are stepping into a world where both men and women are treated as equals!
And of course, let’s give a shoutout to these amazing woman for inspiring a million others! THANK YOU!
