Reza Baqir

With more than 25 years of experience in global sovereign work, Dr. Reza Baqir joined Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) in January 2023 as Managing Director and Global Practice Leader of their Sovereign Advisory Services in Dubai. 

Earlier, Reza was the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). There he negotiated a new IMF program in June 2019, successfully completed six subsequent reviews, and led Pakistan’s financial response to Covid-19. He also liberalized the foreign exchange market from a fixed to a flexible regime, revised the central bank law to strengthen its independence, and undertook digitization initiatives to promote financial inclusion and efficiency.

Before the SBP, Reza spent 19 years with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and two years with the World Bank. He headed the IMF's Debt Policy Division, which oversees IMF’s work on sovereign debt-related policies, including sovereign debt restructuring and debt sustainability analyses. He worked on debt restructurings in Greece, Jamaica, and Ukraine and led the IMF delegation to the Paris Club for four years. Reza also started and headed the IMF’s office in Egypt as Senior Resident Representative overseeing the successful implementation of the IMF’s largest loan in the Middle East. In addition, he was IMF Mission Chief for Romania and Bulgaria, Deputy Chief of the Emerging Markets Division, and IMF Resident Representative in the Philippines.

Reza earned a bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) in economics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School working in areas related to sovereign debt at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. His views have been covered frequently in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNN, and CNBC.