Deputy governor, Bank of Thailand
It was a baptism of fire for Tanya Sirivedhin, who found herself promoted to one of the toughest jobs of the past 18 months: helping to manage the devalued baht and clean up Thailand's financial sector. In the turmoil which followed last year's devaluation, Sirivedhin was seen as one of the few stable influences in the Bank of Thailand, which had seen a rapid turnover of senior officials over the preceding months. She was deemed the natural choice for promotion, and was elevated from the position of assistant governor to deputy governor earlier this year.
"All of a sudden I became the most senior assistant governor. Then, as the governor was appointed from outside, the ministry of finance felt that, to mitigate the shock to the staff of the central bank, the deputy should be appointed from inside," she explains.
Sirivedhin now oversees monetary policy and central bank administration, working closely with the bank's Cambridge- and Harvard-educated governor, Chatu Mongol Sonakul. She has a lot of time for her boss. "He is extremely smart.