The Turkish Official Gazette said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appointed “Hafida Ghaya Arkan,” a former executive in the financial sector in the United States, as head of the Turkish Central Bank, at a time when the bank is preparing to change course and tighten policy after years in which it cut interest rates and witnessed a crisis in the cost of living. .
Previously, Hafiza Arkan was Co-Chief Executive Officer of First Republic Bank and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs. Hafiza Erkan will take over after Erdogan’s re-election on May 28, less than a week after the president indicated that the country would move away from unorthodox economic policies.
Hafiza Arkan will be the fifth to assume the presidency of the Central Bank in 4 years, and she will replace Shihab Qafji Oglu, who led Erdogan’s campaign to cut interest rates, which launched a historic collapse of the national currency in 2021 and pushed inflation to its peak in 24 years when it exceeded 85% last year.
The announcement of the appointment of “Hafizah Arkan” in the Official Gazette was accompanied by the decision to appoint Kavji Oglu as head of the Banking Regulation and Supervision Authority (BDDK).
And the “Central” cut the interest rate to 8.5% from 19% in 2021, and the lira is managed to a large extent through dozens of regulations covering credit and foreign exchange.
The Turkish currency fell to a series of all-time lows this week, trading at 23.5010 liras relative to the dollar following the announcement, near a record low.
President Erdogan chooses seasoned banker Hafize Gaye Erkan to succeed Sahap Kavcioglu as the governor of Türkiye’s central bank pic.twitter.com/MHu7Bhb2uN
— TRT World (@trtworld) June 9, 2023
Educational and professional path
According to Turkish media, “Hafida Arkan” – born in 1982 – is an economist, engineer and daughter of a mechanical engineer, and she was a mathematics teacher.
As for her educational path, she studied in Istanbul, and graduated from the Department of Industrial Engineering at Bogazici University in 1997 with an excellent grade, before moving to the United States to study at Princeton University, during which she received scholarship offers from 9 universities, including Stanford, Princeton, Boston, Cornell and California.
Hafiza Arkan received her PhD in Financial Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Princeton University.
She also held senior management positions in a number of financial consulting firms and a bank, and worked at First Republic Bank from 2014 to 2021, according to her profile on LinkedIn.
#Turkish #woman #hold #position. #Erdogan #appoints #Hafiza #Arkan #Central #Bank
2023-06-09 02:24:13
