Minouche Shafik

The family moved to Savannah, Georgia in the mid-1960s, then to Miami and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Minouche Shafik (formally Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik, ; نعمت شفيق; born 13 August 1962) is an Egyptian-born British and American economist who has been serving as the 20th president of Columbia University since July 2023.

Shafik received a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, 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.

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.

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

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.

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".

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.

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.

Previously, Shafik served as deputy governor of the Bank of England from 2014 to 2017 and permanent secretary of the United Kingdom Department for International Development from 2008 to 2011.

She has also served as a vice president at the World Bank and as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Shafik was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to parents who were both educators.

As a child, she went to Schutz American School.

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.

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.

Internal LSE data puts the figure at 58.5%.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The LSE took the decision to impose 50% pay deductions starting on June 16, 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.

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.

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.

In the event that the full and final assessment (100% of their grades) would lower their classification, the higher provisional classification will stand.

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.

After the Israel–Hamas conflict intensified in October 2023, and an altercation concerning an Israeli student leading to legal action, Shafik issued a statement saying that if "speech is unlawful or violates University rules, it will not be tolerated".

While some said she should have done more to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic violence on campus, many raised concerns over her decision to suspend pro-Palestine student groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from the campus for repeatedly violated University policies relating to on campus events which were changed by Shafik's administration without input or dialogue with the University Senate or announcing the changes to the student body.

This move sparked a faculty revolt, as many saw it as a suppression of free speech and academic freedom.

In November 2023, Shafik was invited to attend the 2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism, but declined citing a scheduling conflict.

Shafik has also been criticized by the student body and many faculty by her lack of concrete actions or protections for students by her administration in the face of harassment, intimidation, and assault.

This includes a truck advertising mostly Muslim and Arab students and some alumni as anti-Semites as well as a former member of the Israel Defense Forces spraying student protestors with Skunk.

She previously served as president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023.

She also serves on the board of directors of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

She took up the post on 1 September 2017.