Sharmini Coorey to retire as director of Institute for Capacity Development

Banking & Financial Services
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Headquarters of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. | Wikimedia Commons/Carol M. Highsmith

After more than three decades of working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sharmini Coorey will retire as director of the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD), effective Oct.29.  

“Sharmini is one of the great leaders in the fund,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a press release. “She has made incredible contributions throughout a stellar Fund career, which began in 1986.”

Among the initiatives Coorey is credited with spearheading the establishment of ICD.  

“Her leadership was key in providing strategic direction for the governance, management, and funding of the IMF’s capacity building activities, making it an ever more potent instrument in the service of our membership,” Georgieva said in the release. “The restructuring of ICD’s own capacity development delivery has also helped to strengthen macroeconomic frameworks for forecasting and policy analysis, both inside and outside the fund.”

Coorey is also credited with launching the fund’s online training program, which now has reached over 110,000 active learners across 193 countries. In addition, she played a major role in the expansion of the fund’s global network of capacity development centers in Africa and Asia.

“She has won the respect and admiration across the fund and the membership for her proven track record of leading analytically rigorous policy and operational work with high impact and influence.” Georgieva said.

A national of Sri Lanka, Coorey joined the fund after spending time at the Economist Program. She has also served as deputy director in the African Department, where she oversaw the fund’s work in a number of countries, including South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malawi and the CEMAC region, according to Economy Next.

IMF officials said the search for Coorey’s successor will commence soon.

“Sharmini deserves enormous credit for her remarkable achievements and she leaves ICD on a very firm footing for the future,” Georgieva said. “I have personally relied on her tremendous experience, sound judgment, and friendship since I came to the Fund and I will sorely miss her.”