Former Finance Minister and Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, has passed away. Her funeral prayers will be held tomorrow after Zuhr in Karachi.
Dr. Akhtar assumed office as the 14th Governor of the State Bank on January 2, 2006, becoming the first woman to hold the position. She brought extensive national and international experience in banking and finance.
Prior to her appointment as Governor, she served at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as Director General for Southeast Asia from January 2004, having previously been Deputy Director General and Director of the ADB’s Management, Finance, and Trade Division for East and Central Asia. She began her career at the ADB in 1990 as a senior economist and central specialist and became a manager in 1998. From 1998 to 2001, she served as the Coordinator for the APEC Finance Ministers’ Group and participated in various committees including the Reorganization, Appeals, and Supervisory Committees.
Dr. Akhtar also represented the ADB at the Bank for International Settlements and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Her expertise covered financial and economic affairs across Central Asia and Southeast Asia, including China.
In Pakistan, she spent ten years with the World Bank’s resident mission as an economist and was associated with the Planning Departments of both federal and Sindh governments. Her work spanned economic analysis, financial policy, industrial and agricultural structural reforms, and research on irrigation systems, intergovernmental financial relations, poverty, and foreign direct investment.
She played a key role in developing Pakistan’s financial markets, including reforms in monetary policy, banking industry regulation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Insurance Commission, and promoting the bond market. She also collaborated closely with private sector institutions and the Pakistan Stock Exchange.
Born in Hyderabad, Dr. Akhtar received her early education in Karachi and Islamabad. She earned a BA in Economics from Punjab University in 1974, an MSc in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, an MA in Development Economics from the University of Sussex in 1977, and a PhD in Economics from Paisley College of Technology in 1980. She was also a Fulbright Scholar and served as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Economics Department in 1987.
Dr. Shamshad Akhtar presented numerous papers at international conferences, seminars, and symposia, focusing on monetary and financial policy, banking and capital markets, international financial structures, regulation, and corporate restructuring.
Her passing is mourned as the loss of a pioneering economist and a reform-minded leader in Pakistan’s financial and economic sectors.
