Egypt-born Shafik leads race to run Britain’s Financial Regulator

The Bank of England’s Egyptian-born most senior female official has been tipped to take charge of Britain’s financial watchdog after the ousting last month of the regulator’s chief executive over accusations that he was too hard on the City.

Dame Nemat Shafik, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, is understood to be among those being considered in an international search for a replacement for Martin Wheatley as head of the Financial Conduct Authority, The Times UK reported.

Shafik, is the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England since 1 August 2014 with responsibility for markets and banking and a Member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee. She was the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, a position she held from 2011 to 2014. She previously served as Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) beginning in March 2008. An economist by training, she has held a number of senior positions in international organisations as well as spoken, taught and published extensively on globalisation, emerging markets and private investment, international development, the Middle East and Africa, and the environment.

Prior to coming to DFID in 2004, Shafik became the youngest ever Vice President at the World Bank at the age of 36. In World Bank, she was responsible for improving the performance of a private sector and infrastructure portfolio of investments worth about US$50 billion.

She also led a revitalization of the Bank’s infrastructure business through product innovation and created global groups to provide both policy advice, debt and equity investments jointly with the International Finance Corporation in the areas of oil, gas and mining, telecommunications, small and medium enterprises, project finance and guarantees.

The Egyptian-born economist is a British and US national.