Tharman Shanmugaratnam was elected as Singapore’s President in September 2023.
He served in politics for 22 years before resigning to contest in the Presidential Election. He was Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister for several years, and Education Minister earlier. He also served as Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator over more than a decade.
Tharman has been committed through his years in government to sustaining social mobility and economic resilience, as foundations for an inclusive society.
He introduced major educational reforms while serving as Education Minister, aimed at achieving a broader and more flexible system of meritocracy. He later led the ‘SkillsFuture’ programme, launched in 2014 to make life-long learning a reality for all. He also chaired tripartite councils from 2011 to 2016 which drove national efforts to raise productivity through industry-specific transformation programmes.
Internationally, Tharman has led several commissions focused on global financial reforms, preparedness for future pandemics, global water sustainability, and job creation for a new era.
He currently co-chairs the High-Level Advisory Council on Jobs, established by the World Bank Group in July 2024. He recently co-chaired the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which released its report in October 2024.
Tharman also chairs the board of the Group of Thirty, an independent global council of economic and financial leaders from the public and private sectors.
He earlier chaired the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance in 2017-2018, and co-chaired the G20 High-Level Panel on financing pandemic preparedness and response in 2021. He also chaired the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee from 2011-2014, and the Advisory Board for the UN’s Human Development Report for several years.
Tharman did undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics and an M.Phil in Economics at the University of Cambridge. He later obtained an MPA at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was conferred the Lucius N Littauer Fellow award for outstanding performance and leadership potential. In 2019, the Institute of International Finance awarded him its inaugural Distinguished Leadership and Service Award. In 2025, Tharman was awarded the Miriam Pozen Prize by the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy, in recognition of his leadership in international financial policy.
