EBRD: Chakrabarti steps up to the challenges

Now extended from a laggard emerging Europe to post-revolutionary Arab countries, the EBRD’s mandate has never been so stretched. But the multilateral lender’s new president, Suma Chakrabarti – its first British head – says that under him the institution has what it takes to change and fulfil its role.

Our ailing world lies awake in bed, patched up and medicated, shaking with Grexit-related night sweats, but Sir Suma Chakrabarti has other problems on his plate. The sixth president of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a multilateral with tentacles that now reach 63 countries in six continents, isn’t happy at all.

Asked how it feels to be the first Brit nominated to a post usually divvied up by Berlin and Paris, his eyes narrow slightly and he leans forward and pauses.

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