Inter-American Development Bank reveals shortlist of candidates for president job

The Inter-American Development Bank has revealed a shortlist of five economists being considered for the role of president.

Among the candidates are the deputy director of Mexico’s central bank, an IMF executive and a former Chilean finance minister.

Member countries of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) are working to elect a new leader of the institution after former President Mauricio Claver-Carone was ousted in September following an ethics scandal.

The candidates under consideration are: Cecilia Todesca Bocco, Ilan Goldfajn, Nicolás Eyzaguirre Guzmán, Gerardo Esquivel Hernández and Gerard Johnson.

Each of the nominees were interviewed by member countries on Nov. 13, and IDB officials will take a vote on who should become the next bank president on Nov. 20. In order to be elected president, candidates will need an absolute majority of votes from the bank’s 26 borrowing member countries plus Canada and the United States.

Todesca Bocco was nominated by Argentina, and is the country’s secretary of international economic relations at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Ilan Goldfajn, who was nominated by Brazil, is the current Western Hemisphere director at the IMF, and has previously served as president of Brazil’s central bank. He has previously worked as chief economist at Itau Unibanco and has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chile has proposed Eyzaguirre Guzmán, who previously served as that country’s finance minister between 2000 and 2006. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Finally, Trinidad and Tobago has put forward Gerard Johnson, and Mexico has nominated Esquivel Hernández, who is deputy governor of that country’s central bank.

The IDB was established in 1959 to provide long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean.