Suma Chakrabarti

Sir Sumantra "Suma" Chakrabarti (born 1959) is a former British civil servant who served as president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) from July 2012 to July 2020. He was previously the highest ranking Indian in Britain's civil service, serving as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and Clerk of the Crown in Chancery from late 2007 until 2012. Early life and education Chakrabarti was born in 1959 in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India. He was educated at City of London School; New College, Oxford (BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics); and the University of Sussex (MA in Development Economics). Career in the civil service Chakrabarti joined the UK's Overseas Development Administration (ODA), the predecessor to the Department for International Development, in 1984 as a senior economic assistant working on macroeconomics issues and UK aid projects. He previously worked in Botswana on an Overseas Development Institute Fellowship. He was seconded by the UK government to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the 1980s. On returning to the ODA in London, he became Private Secretary to the Conservative Lynda Chalker, then Minister of State for Overseas Development based at the Foreign Office. Chakrabarti subsequently became Head of Aid Policy and Resources.