Press Release No. 21/378

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva Appoints Dominique Desruelle as Director of the Institute for Capacity Development

December 15, 2021

Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva announced today her intention to appoint Dominique Desruelle as Director of the Institute for Capacity Development (ICD). Mr. Desruelle, who is currently Chief of Staff in the Office of the Managing Director, will succeed Sharmini Coorey, whose retirement from the IMF was announced on September 13, 2021. He is expected to take up his appointment on January 24, 2022.

Mr. Desruelle, a French national, started his career on the IMF staff in 1995 as an economist in the Strategy, Policy and Review Department. Over the past 27 years, he has held a number of senior positions at the IMF including as Deputy Director for ICD from May 2012 to January 2017 and Deputy Director for the African Department from January 2017 to July 2020. He has gained extensive leadership experience in multiple area departments—including the African, European, and Western Hemisphere Departments—serving as senior reviewer, mission chief, and desk economist for a wide range of countries.

“Dominique has vast knowledge, intellectual leadership, and sound judgment gained during his impressive career at the IMF,” Ms. Georgieva said. “Most recently, as Chief of Staff in my office, his proven superior managerial and organizational skills immediately came to the fore, helping the senior management team and the institution navigate one of the more challenging times in our history. He is well respected across the institution and by our member countries”.

Mr. Desruelle has also led work in key policy areas, such as Fund surveillance and design of lending operations, sovereign debt, engagement with fragile states, and digitalization. As part of his experiences, he was instrumental in setting up and overseeing the Knowledge Management Unit. He will take his tremendous experience, innovative thinking, and strong people-management skills to further enhance ICD’s strategy and operations--which he helped to shape during his tenure there as Deputy Director. Indeed, in that position, he played a key role in modernizing the Fund’s CD strategy, helping the IMF prioritize its capacity development work and integrate it more effectively with our surveillance and lending.

“As Director, he will have the opportunity to continue to build on the work already underway in the department’s main areas of focus: capacity development governance, external delivery of capacity development, fundraising and partnerships, and internal economics training,” Ms. Georgieva said. “I am confident that his vast experience will benefit us all in enhancing the IMF’s work on capacity development.”

Prior to joining the staff of the IMF, Mr. Desruelle worked for two years as an advisor to the IMF’s Executive Director for France. He previously taught at the Université du Québec à Montreal and the Université de Montréal. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in Engineering from Ecole Centrale de Paris.