Press Release No. 24/307

Rhoda Weeks-Brown to Retire as IMF General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department

August 26, 2024

Washington, DC: Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), announced today that Rhoda Weeks-Brown intends to retire as General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department on September 30, 2024.

“Rhoda has been a pillar of the Fund’s senior leadership team since becoming General Counsel in 2018. Her groundbreaking appointment—as the IMF’s first female General Counsel and the first General Counsel to hail from a developing country—is a testament to her outstanding leadership, skills, and expertise,” Ms. Georgieva said. “Furthermore, Rhoda has been an exemplary corporate citizen, serving as a prolific member of many important Fund committees, as a tireless coach and mentor to many staff, and as a relentless champion for diversity and inclusion both inside and outside the Fund,” Ms. Georgieva added.

During her 27 years of service, Ms. Weeks-Brown, a Liberian national, made significant contributions on a wide range of critical country, policy, and administrative matters. Among these, she played a key role in the design of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI); the transformation of the Fund’s General Resources Account (GRA) lending tool kit and its lending facilities and financing framework for low-income countries; the design of a new income model for the Fund; key quota and governance reforms; and the institution’s view on capital flows. Ms. Weeks-Brown also demonstrated her versatility by serving a stint as Deputy Director of the IMF’s Communications Department, overseeing communications in Asia, Africa and Europe among other initiatives.

Since becoming General Counsel in 2018, Ms. Weeks-Brown has played the essential role of providing legal counsel to the Fund through a period of unprecedented and tremendous change. She led the Legal Department’s work on major policy and administrative reforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; the establishment of the ground-breaking Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) that provides longer-term financing to member countries; other major reforms to the Fund’s financing policies; the largest Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation in the Fund’s history; and several new macro-critical areas for the Fund, including climate and gender policy. Ms. Weeks-Brown has also played an instrumental role in the IMF’s Institutional Safeguards Review (ISR), which aims to strengthen wide-ranging areas of the Fund’s internal safeguards and governance. Another hallmark of Ms. Weeks-Brown’s tenure as General Counsel has been her tireless advocacy for integrating good governance reforms into the Fund’s policy advice, and for the importance of anti-corruption measures in improving the lives of people in IMF member countries.

“Rhoda has contributed to virtually all aspects of the Fund’s work. In addition to a sharp analytical mind and deep legal experience, she has been a passionate advocate for the importance of the Fund’s work in a rapidly changing world,” Ms. Georgieva said. “Her generous guidance, caring, and friendship will be missed by many of us.”

Biographical information: https://www.imf.org/en/About/senior-officials/Bios/rhoda-weeks-brown