Erkan becomes the first woman to head the central bank following her appointment by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Hafize Gaye Erkan has been appointed governor of Turkey’s Central Bank, an institution expected to play a key role in efforts to boost the country’s crisis-hit economy.
Erkan becomes the first woman to head the institution after being appointed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The 41-year-old has had a stellar career in the American corporate world with positions in financial services, banking, investments, risk management, technology and digital innovation, but little is known about Erkan in her home country.
Erkan was born in Istanbul in 1982 to an engineer father and a mother who taught mathematics and physics. She attended one of the top state schools in Turkey, Istanbul High School, and graduated second in her class.
She studied industrial engineering at Bogazici University, one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey, and obtained a PhD in operational research and financial engineering from Princeton University in the United States in 2006.
Erkan later completed business programs at Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Business career
Erkan joined global investment bank Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an associate and was appointed general manager in 2011.
She joined First Republic Bank in 2014, becoming co-chief executive officer in 2021.
In 2018, she was named to the 40 Under 40 lists by Crain New York Business and the San Francisco Business Times, which noted that Erkan was the only woman under 40 to hold a president or CEO title at one of the 100 largest American banks.
Erkan is a supporter of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, with which she recently founded the Hafize Gaye Erkan First Republic Fellowship Program for young women and girls.
In June 2022, Erkan was named CEO of Greystone, a New York-based real estate finance and investment company.
Last week, Erdogan appointed Mehmet Simsek, an advocate of orthodox economic policies, as Turkey’s finance and finance minister. The appointment suggested a retreat from what is widely regarded as Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies, including the belief that raising interest rates increases inflation.