Suma Chakrabarti
Sir Suma Chakrabarti, KCB was elected as the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on 18 May 2012 for the next four years, from 3 July 2012.[1]
Early life
Suma Chakrabarti was born in 1959 in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India. He was educated at City of London School; New College, Oxford (BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics); and the University of Sussex (MA in Economics). He is married and has one daughter.
Political career
Chakrabarti joined the ODA in 1984 as a senior economic assistant working on macroeconomics issues and UK aid projects. He previously worked in Botswana on an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship. He was seconded by the UK government to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the 1980s. On returning to ODA in London, he became Private Secretary to the Conservative Lynda Chalker, then Minister of State for Overseas Development based at the Foreign Office. Chakrabarti subsequently became Head of Aid Policy and Resources.
He moved to H.M. Treasury in 1996 before taking a Cabinet Office post responsible for creating the new central Performance and Innovation Unit to support the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in coordinating reviews of long-term issues that cross public sector institutional boundaries. Still in the Cabinet Office, he headed the Economic and Domestic Affairs Secretariat, also maintaining a foot in the then Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
In 2001, returning to the ODA's replacement, he became DFID Director-General for Regional Development Programmes, managing 1,200 staff in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America.
On 8 December 2009, Chakrabarti gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry, discussing preparations for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[2]
From 2007 to 2012 Chakrabarti served as a Permanent Secretary (senior civil servant) at the UK's Ministry of Justice. During that period, he also held office as Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, and, as such, is responsible for the running of the Crown Office, under the directions of the Lord Chancellor. He was appointed on 15 November 2007.[3] Prior to this, from 2002, he was Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development (DFID) - formerly the Overseas Development Administration (ODA).
Offices held
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Vereker (governor)[4] |
Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development 2002-2008 |
Succeeded by Minouche Shafik |
| Preceded by Alex Allan Permanent Secretary of the Department for Constitutional Affairs |
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice 2008-2012 |
Succeeded by Ursula Brennan |
References
- ↑ http://www.ebrd.com/pages/news/press/2012/120518g.shtml
- ↑ "Iraq details for aid workers 'were scanty before war'". BBC News (BBC). 8 December 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
- ↑ Suma Chakrabarti - Ministry of Justice
- ↑ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dfid.gov.uk/aboutDFID/opd/opdnewsletter2002.pdf