Shamshad Akhtar

Shamshad Akhtar


Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
Incumbent
Assumed office 10 December 2013
Preceded by	Noeleen Heyzer
Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan
In office December 2, 2006 – January 1, 2009
Prime Minister	Yousaf Raza Gillani
Vice President of World Bank for Middle East and North Africa
In office July 6, 2009 – January 1, 2009
Prime Minister	Yousaf Raza Gillani
Personal details
Born	Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan
Alma mater	Harvard University University of the West of Scotland University of Sussex Quaid-i-Azam University

Shamshad Akhtar Detho PhD (Urdu: ڈاکٹر شمشاد اختر) is a Pakistani development economist, diplomat and intellectual who serves as the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations as the head of UNESCAP. Prior to that, she served as the 14th Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, the first woman to assume this position. She also served as an senior adviser to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and the vice-President at the World Bank.

Akhtar was born in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. She is a Sindhi and hails from the village of Haji Nathar Detho in Naushahro Feroze District. Akhtar had her earlier education at Karachi and Islamabad and graduated from the University of Punjab with a B. A. in 1974 followed by a M.A in economics from Quaid-e-Azam University in 1975.

She moved to the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth Scholarship to study development economics at the University of Sussex, receiving another M.A in 1977. She moved to the University of the West of Scotland (then-University of Paisley) where she was awarded a PhD in 1980.