Ilan Goldfajn

Ilan Goldfajn was born in 1966 in Haifa

Ilan Goldfajn was born in Haifa, Israel, on 12 March 1966. He is Jewish. He speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish and Hebrew.

He studied economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and earned a master's degree at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. He completed a doctorate at MIT under Stanley Fischer and Rudi Dornbusch.

In the private sector he was chief economist and partner at Itaú Unibanco, a founding partner at Ciano Investimentos and a partner at Gávea Investimentos. He chaired the advisory board of Credit Suisse Brazil and consulted for the World Bank, the United Nations and the IMF. He also taught economics in Brazil and the United States.

He became governor of the Central Bank of Brazil in May 2016 and served until 2019. During his term, regulatory changes opened the financial sector to new players and fintech firms, and the instant payment system Pix was developed.

In January 2022 he took office as director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department. On 20 November 2022 he was elected president of the Inter-American Development Bank with 80% of the vote and took office on 19 December. Under him the bank launched the IDBImpact+ reforms.