Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, Indermit served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he helped shape the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020.  Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program.

Indermit led the World Bank's influential 2009 World Development Report on economic geography. His work includes introducing the concept of the “middle-income trap” to describe how countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. The 2024 World Development Report, prepared with his guidance, highlights strategies for countries to escape the middle-income trap—by adopting modern technologies and driving innovation.

Indermit has published extensively on key policy issues facing developing countries—among other things, sovereign debt vulnerabilities, green growth and natural-resource wealth, labor markets, and poverty and inequality. Indermit has also taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Mamta Murthi started as Vice President for the People Vice Presidency at the World Bank on July 1, 2020. In this role she oversees the Global Practices for Education; Health, Nutrition, and Population; Gender; Social Protection and Jobs – as well as the Human Capital Project.

Mamta has held many leadership positions at the World Bank, including as Director of Operations Policy (2019), Director of Strategy and Operations in Infrastructure (2018), Director of Strategy and Operations in the Africa Region (2015-2018), and Regional Country Director for the EU, based in Brussels (2012-15).  

An economist by training, she has had technical roles in Social Protection and Labor (1996-2004) and Education (2006-10). She was Deputy Director of the World Development Report on Development and the Next Generation in 2006. During 1998-2000, Mamta was MacArthur Fellow for Poverty and Inequality at King’s College, Cambridge.

Mamta joined the World Bank as a Young Professional in 1995. She has a Bachelors’ Degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and a D.Phil in Economics from the University of Oxford. Mamta has written extensively on poverty, demography, education, pensions, and skills and is well-known for her econometric studies on fertility in India.

Haishan Fu is World Bank Group’s Chief Statistician and Director of the Development Data Group. In these roles, she leads and coordinates the Bank’s development data agenda, including oversight of cutting-edge global data public goods, pioneering public-private partnerships, globally trusted technical advisory services, and innovative financing solutions, including the World Bank-hosted Global Data Facility.

A lifelong advocate for unlocking the power of data to improve lives, Haishan has been at the forefront of the global data discourse as a prominent thought leader, expert advisor, and academic and policy researcher for over three decades.  

Prior to joining the Bank, she led the regional statistical development programs in Asia and the Pacific at UNESCAP and was the first Chief of Statistics of UNDP’s Human Development Report. Haishan holds a Ph.D. in Demography from Princeton University and a B.A. in Economics from Peking University.

Umar Serajuddin is a Manager at the World Bank’s Development Data Group, in charge of its Data Analytics Unit. He manages the teams that publish some of World Bank’s most prominent global public goods, including the global poverty numbers (PIP), the geospatial data teams (GOST and GEMS), among others. He also oversees the Bank's Atlas of Global Development, formerly known as the SDG Atlas.

Previously, Umar worked as a poverty economist for the Middle East and North Africa and the South Asia regions of the World Bank. During that time, he led the World Bank’s efforts in poverty analysis and policy development in Jordan and Yemen.

Umar holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and has published work in the fields of poverty, inequality, and social protection.

Divyanshi Wadhwa is a Data Scientist with the Development Data Group at the World Bank and works on the World Development Indicators database. Her work focuses on improving quality and dissemination of World Bank data with a particular emphasis on gender statistics. She also leads the work on data storytelling and visualization, and was a co-editor of The Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals 2020.

Prior to joining the Bank, Divyanshi worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Global Development (CGD) in Washington, DC.

An Indian national, Divyanshi holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Delhi, India and a M.A. in Public Policy from Georgetown University.

Dena Ringold is the Director, Strategy & Operations, People Vice Presidency, at the World Bank Group. Prior to this, she was Regional Director for Human Development in the Africa West and Central Region, as well as held several senior positions including Practice Manager for the Human Capital Project in the Office of the Vice President for Human Development and Practice Manager for Social Protection and Jobs in East and Southern Africa. Dena was a core team member of the World Development Report 2013 on jobs and worked in the Office of the Chief Economist for Human Development, where she focused on the governance of service delivery. She has previously worked in Latin America and the Europe and Central Asia region, where she helped to initiate the World Bank's involvement on Roma inclusion.

Illango Patchamuthu is currently the Director, Strategy & Operations, at the World Bank Group's Digital & AI Vice Presidency. Prior to this, he was Director for Strategy and Operations, South Asia Region, and was the World Bank's Country Director for Pakistan from 2015 to 2020. He counts over three decades of international development experience. He joined the World Bank in 1993 and has since served in many positions including leadership roles in Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific, and South Asia regions of the World Bank. He has also held managerial responsibilities in the Bank’s country offices in Bangkok, Vientiane and Kabul.

Erik Fernstrom is the Regional Practice Director for Infrastructure for the World Bank Group’s Eastern and Southern Africa region. His background spans more than 25 years in the energy industry, starting with engineering and management positions in Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). After joining the World Bank in 2003, he has led large energy sector reform programs in Africa with special emphasis on sector reform, access to electricity, regional power trade, and the development of public-private partnerships. Before joining the World Bank’s East Africa Energy Team, he managed the World Bank’s Energy department for North Africa and the Middle East.

Saroj Kumar Jha is the Global Director for the World Bank Group’s Water Department. In his current assignment, Mr. Jha leads the Department senior management team, which drives the policy direction of the Practice, oversees a portfolio of $27 billion in water-related investments, analytical work, multi-donor trust funds and global partnerships. Mr. Jha believes that solving the water crisis is central to the future of humanity on a livable planet, and this needs global, collective action to establish water security as a key pillar in national climate and development plans. Under Mr. Jha’s leadership, Water Practice is accelerating global and county level water action agenda for green, resilient, and inclusive growth, creating good jobs, and to tackle the water-climate-conflict nexus in shared river basins around the world.

Seynabou Sakho was appointed Regional Practice Director for the Prosperity Department in the World Bank’s Western and Central Africa Region in April 2026. In this role, she leads programs focused on jobs, economic transformation, public service delivery, and fiscal sustainability, with particular attention to gender equality, fragility, and vulnerable populations.

Previously, Sakho served as Director of Strategy and Operations in the Office of the Managing Director of Operations and earlier held the same role for Latin America and the Caribbean. There, she helped coordinate the World Bank’s COVID-19 response, including $1.6 billion for vaccine deployment, and led regional efforts to address food and fuel price shocks. She also served as Country Director for Central America.

Originally from Senegal, Sakho joined the World Bank in 2004 and has held several economist and leadership positions across regions. She holds advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Economie, and has published research on growth, private sector development, and finance.