Yukiko Omura, a Japanese national and former Executive Vice-President of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank Group, is IFAD’s seventh Vice-President.
Ms Omura brings to the job over 25 years of experience in international finance and development. As she joins IFAD, the private sector is becoming an increasingly crucial ally to drive economic growth and to reduce poverty in rural areas of developing countries, as reconfirmed during the January 2010 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
“I am coming to IFAD at a critical time for international development when the importance of agriculture for economic growth is back on the agenda of world leaders,” says Omura. “Agriculture is where two of the most pressing issues of our time – climate change and food security – intersect. IFAD, as one of the largest sources of development financing for agriculture and rural development, has a key role to play in bringing sustainable solutions to these issues which are critical in tackling poverty.”
Ms Omura completed her term as head of MIGA at the end of July 2009 after achieving historic results for the agency.
She began her career as a project economist with the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC where she worked in the infrastructure sector. She then spent 10 years with JP Morgan in Tokyo, London and New York, where she launched the emerging markets operations and she headed the EMSTAR (Emerging Markets Sales, Trade and Research) Marketing for Northern Europe. Ms Omura held senior positions at various marketing and banking companies, including Lehman Brothers, UBS and Dresdner Bank. In 2002, Ms Omura created an HIV/AIDS Prevention Fund, a charitable company based in London.
Born in Paris, Ms Omura was educated in Japan, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Switzerland and the United States. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from London University, a master’s degree in development economics and a master’s degree in political economics from Boston University. Ms Omura speaks Japanese, English, French and Spanish.
