Yan Liu

General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department

Yan Liu is General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund. She advises the IMF’s Executive Board, management, staff, and country membership on all legal aspects of the Fund’s operations, including its lending, surveillance, capacity development, regulatory and advisory functions. 

Over her career at the IMF, Ms. Liu has led the Legal Department’s work on a range of policy, country, and strategic issues. This includes reforming IMF policies on lending; helping strengthen central banking and financial sector legal frameworks in response to technological changes; leading work on corporate and household insolvency, and public debt management; and contributing to the development of international standards for financial regulation.

Ms Liu is also a well-recognized expert in sovereign debt, setting the Fund’s policies in this field and supporting the Common Framework and the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable. She has provided advice on the Fund’s role in facilitating orderly restructurings in several member countries.

Ms. Liu is widely published on various aspects of the law, and policy perspectives on areas such as private debt, sovereign debt restructuring, and good governance.

Ms. Liu received her Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois, and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the Fund, she practiced corporate and securities law in the United States.

Last updated: October 8, 2024