Ms. Tsikata, a Ghanaian national, was the World Bank Group Corporate Secretary and Vice President. Ms. Tsikata has held management positions in various countries and regions since joining the Bank in 1991. Previously, she served as the President’s Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of the President. Prior to this, Ms. Tsikata was the Director for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department of the Europe and Central Asia Region, overseeing the Bank’s economic analysis in a diverse group of countries and growing reimbursable advisory services in the region. Under her leadership, the Department managed the highest volume of policy based lending Bank-wide.

Ms. Tsikata joined the World Bank in 1991 as a Young Professional. Her previous assignments also include Country Director for the Caribbean Region from 2007 to 2011, where she oversaw the Bank’s response to several natural disasters including the earthquake in Haiti. Prior to that, she was Sector Manager for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit in the Africa Region, covering 17 countries in Eastern and Central Africa. She also held positions in the World Bank’s International Trade Department and Independent Evaluation Group.

Between 1998 and 2001, while on leave from the World Bank, she served as a senior research fellow at the Economic and Social Research Foundation in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania; as a consultant to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris; and to the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research in Helsinki.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Tsikata was a Bank economist working on macroeconomic, fiscal and trade issues in Africa, East Asia and South Asia and is the author of several publications, notably in the trade area.

Before joining the World Bank, Ms. Tsikata taught monetary theory and macroeconomic policy at New York University, where she undertook graduate studies, and holds an undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.