Minouche Shafik

Shafik was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to parents who were both educators.[9] As a child, she went to Schutz American School. The family moved to Savannah, Georgia in the mid-1960s, then to Miami, Florida, and Raleigh, North Carolina.[10]

Shafik studied at the American University in Cairo. She received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, with a major in economics and politics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1983; a Master of Science in economics from the London School of Economics in 1986; and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from St Antony's College, Oxford, in 1989.[11]

Shafik joined the World Bank after Oxford and held a variety of roles, starting in the research department where she worked on global economic modelling and forecasting and then later on environmental issues. She moved to do macroeconomic work on Eastern Europe during the transition and in the Middle East where she published a number of books and articles on the region's economic future, the economics of peace, labour markets, regional integration, and gender issues.[12]

At age 36, Shafik became the World Bank's youngest-ever Vice President.[13][14]

She initially went to the British Government's Department for International Development (DFID) on secondment as Director General for Country Programmes where she was responsible for all of DFID's overseas offices and financing across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. She was appointed as DFID's Permanent Secretary in 2008 where she managed a bilateral aid programme in over 100 countries, multilateral policies and financing for the United Nations, European Union and international financial institutions, and overall development policy and research – responsible for 2400 staff and a budget of £38 billion (about US$60 billion) for 2011–2014. During her tenure, DFID was described by the OECD independent peer review as "a recognised international leader in development".[15]

Shafik served as IMF Deputy Managing Director from April 2011 until March 2014. As Deputy Managing Director, she oversaw the IMF's work in Europe and the Middle East, a $1 billion administrative budget, human resources for its 3,000 staff and the IMF's training and technical assistance for policy makers around the world.[16]

Shafik joined the Bank of England as its first Deputy Governor on Markets and Banking responsible for the Bank's £500 billion balance sheet and served as a Member of the bank's Monetary Policy Committee, Financial Policy Committee and the Board of the Prudential Regulatory Authority. She led the Bank's Fair and Effective Markets review to tackle misconduct in financial markets.

On 12 September 2016, it was announced that Shafik had been appointed as the next Director of the London School of Economics, replacing sociologist Craig Calhoun. She took up the post on 1 September 2017.[17]

During Shafik's directorship of the LSE, levels of academic casualisation increased, with the number of academics on fixed term contracts increasing from 55% in 2016/2017 to 59% in 2021/2022, according to Higher Education Statistical Agency data[18] (Internal LSE data puts the figure at 58.5%).[19] During this same period, comparable universities such as University of Edinburgh, University College London and Imperial all increased their rates of permanent staff relative to those on fixed term contracts.[18] Only Oxford had a higher proportion of casual academic work for the 2021/2022 year (66%) although in contrast to LSE, the proportion remained constant rather than rising.[18] As a result, the student-to-permanent staff ratio at LSE decreased during Shafik's directorship and had, as of July 2023, the worst student-to-permanent staff ratio among comparable universities in the UK, according to HESA data.[18] According to research conducted into the well-being into postdocs and teaching fellows in 2023 by the LSE branch of the University College Union (a trade union representing further and higher education staff), 82% of fixed term academic staff at the LSE experienced regular or constant anxiety about their professional futures.[19] In the same survey, overwork and mental health issues were reported as endemic among respondents, with 40% of fellows saying that their teaching hours exceeded LSE's universal teaching limit of 100 hours per academic year for LSE Fellows.[19]

In response to a legal strike action taken by UCU in the summer of 2023 over pay and casualised working conditions, the LSE management, under the directorship of Shafik, took the decision to impose punitive pay deductions on academic staff participating in the action.[20] The LSE took the decision to impose 50% pay deductions starting on June 16th,[20] but as no deductions were taken until the end of July, some participating staff received July payslips deducting 75% of their income for that month. By the end of August 2023, LSE had imposed 75 days of deductions on some staff. In comparison, neighboring King's College London had capped their 50% deductions at 3 weeks. On 8 September 2023, the LSE and UCU LSE branch reached a joint local agreement, with the LSE management agreeing to reimburse 67% of the withheld amount taken during June, July and August, subject to all marks being submitted.[21]

In addition to imposing pay deductions, the LSE management, under Shafik's directorship pushed through a 'Exceptional Degree Classification Schemes' policy in response to the strike action.[22] Under this scheme, undergraduate students can be awarded provisional degrees on the basis of only approximately 85-90% of their grades and Masters students, only 75% of their grades.[22] In the event that the full and final assessment (100% of their grades) would lower their classification, the higher provisional classification will stand.[22] This policy allowed students to graduate on time but effectively lowered the standards of LSE degrees awarded during the strike action.

On 18 January 2023, It was announced that Shafik would become the next President of Columbia University, starting 1 July 2023.[23][24]

In October 2023, Minouche Shafik faced controversy at Columbia University due to her response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. She was criticized as a "coward" for not denouncing student organizations deemed "pro-terror" and not protecting targets of hate.[25] Another news source reported on the same incident, in which it is alleged that Shafik had not spoken out against these student groups.[26]

Shafik on the far right with Barack Obama and Christine Lagarde

Shafik has held academic appointments, both as Adjunct Professor in the Economics Department at Georgetown University from 1989 to 1994, and as Visiting Associate Professor at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 1996.[27]

She has authored, edited, and co-authored a number of books. She authored Prospects for the Middle East and North African Economies: from Boom to Bust and Back? (14 editions, 1997 to 2016) and Economic Challenges Facing Middle Eastern and North African Countries (14 editions, 1997 to 2016).[28]

She has written articles for a number of publications, including Oxford Economic Papers,[29] The Columbia Journal of World Business, The Middle East Journal, Journal of African Finance and Economic Development, World Development, and the Journal of Development Economics. She contributes to a blog with other heads of development agencies at Ideas4development.org.[30]

In September 2016, Shafik was appointed as the 16th Director of the London School of Economics (LSE), effective from 1 September 2017.[4]

Shafik was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the June 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours.[48]

She was named "GG2 Woman of the Year" in 2009.[49] She was named as one of Forbes 100 most powerful women in 2015[50][51] and received the 100 Women in Finance European Industry Leaders Award in 2019.[52]

She was gazetted as Baroness Shafik, of Camden in the London Borough of Camden and of Alexandria in the Arab Republic of Egypt, in the 2020 Political Honours and was introduced to the House of Lords on 15 October 2020.[53][54] She sits as a crossbencher and made her maiden speech on 28 January 2021.[55]

Shafik was elected a honorary fellow of the British Academy in 2021[56] and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Utrecht University.[57]

After joining the World Bank, Shafik married economist Mohamed El-Erian.[58]

With her second husband, scientist Raffael Jovine, she has twin children and three stepchildren;[48] of note, her daughter is an alumna of Columbia GSAPP's urban planning program.[59] She speaks English, Arabic, and French[14] and holds both US and UK nationality.[60]

• "New top civil servant for DFID". DFID.gov.uk. 9 June 2011. Archived from the original on 12 June 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2012.

• Executive Office of LSE Archived, LSE 2023
• Meet Minouche Shafik Columbia University 2023
• Full text of doctoral thesis, "Private investment and public policy in Egypt, 1960-1986" via Oxford Research Archive
• Shafik on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 2018