Interview with Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Singapore

Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore

Chairman, International Monetary and Financial Committee, International Monetary Fund

BIOGraphy

Tharman has been Deputy Prime Minister in the Singapore Cabinet since May 2011. He continues to serve as Minister for Finance, a responsibility he has performed since Dec 2007.

Tharman was appointed by his peers as Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the policy steering committee of the IMF, in March 2011. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty, also known as "The Consultative Group on International Economic and Monetary Affairs".

He served for five years as Minister for Education, between 2003 and 2008, and currently chairs the International Academic Advisory Panel that advises the Singapore government on strategies for the university sector.

Tharman studied economics at the London School of Economics and Cambridge University. He later obtained a masters in public administration at Harvard University, where he received the Lucius N Littauer Fellow award for outstanding performance and leadership potential.

Married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a lawyer by background and now actively engaged in community work and the non-profit arts sector. They have four children.