Gita Gopinath

Gita Gopinath (born 8 December 1971) is an Indian-American economist who has served as the Gregory and Ania Coffey professor of Economics at Harvard University since 2025. She was previously with the university from 2005 to 2019 before taking leave for public service. Gopinath served as the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2022 to 2025. Prior to that, she served as chief economist of the IMF between 2019 and 2022.

Gopinath had a two-decade-long career as an academic at both Harvard and the University of Chicago (2001–05). At the former institution, she was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics from 2005 to 2022. She is co-director of the international finance and macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has earlier worked as the honorary economic adviser to the chief minister of Kerala.

During her time at the IMF, Gopinath worked closely with Christine Lagarde on global macroeconomic initiatives. She was credited with naming the worldwide recession of 2020 as "the Great Lockdown". After her tenure as chief economist, Gopinath led the IMF alongside Kristalina Georgieva as her deputy from 2022 until 2025.