Born in India and a naturalized American, Ajay Banga was elected yesterday, May 3, as the new president of the World Bank (WB), who will have multiple challenges, including financing the fight against global warming and reforming the institution’s operations. financial.
This 63-year-old businessman will succeed David Malpass from June.
Her appointment did not fully meet the expectations of the financial institution, which encouraged its members to promote women’s candidacies.
According to close sources, the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, was in favor of this idea but the final decision rests with the US president, Joe Biden.
However, this designation reflects the White House’s willingness to make a gesture towards certain emerging countries by proposing a person who was born, raised and educated in one of the largest nations in the world and which the United States tries to reach out to: India. .
“I think having someone who can speak to different identities and stakeholders is absolutely essential,” said Clemence Landers, a researcher at the Center for Global Development, an organization that aims to contribute to global poverty reduction based on economic research. . This is because Ajay Banga had a first life in the Indian subcontinent.
Born in Pune, in the central Indian state of Maharashtra, into a family belonging to the Sikh religious minority, Ajay Banga moved regularly throughout his childhood, according to assignments from his father, a military man who finished his career with the rank of lieutenant general.
He continued his studies there, first at St Stephen’s College in New Delhi and then at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, one of the best business schools in Asia, before beginning his career with subsidiaries of large agri-food groups such as Nestlé. and PepsiCo in the early 1980s.
Ajay Banga switched to finance in the late 1990s and joined Citigroup, and from 2005 to 2009 was responsible for developing the group’s microfinance strategy.
In 2009, he joined Mastercard as Chief Operating Officer before becoming CEO a year later and Chairman of the Board of Directors in 2021.
It has a rather unique approach. His vision of things is really to find growth through financial inclusion, through, for example, microcredits, especially in emerging countries,” said Luis Alberto Moreno, former president of the Inter-American Development Bank.
The climate issue is undoubtedly one of the reasons that prompted the outgoing WB president, David Malpass, to resign from the institution on February 15, one year before the end of his term.
