After years of hard work and commitment, former Deputy Bank Governor, Dr Ibrahim Stevens has been appointed Bank Governor by President Julius Maada Bio. Dr Stevens held the post of Deputy Bank Governor since 2014 bringing rich experience to the country’s top final institution.
He was a senior economist at the Bank of England holding a doctorate degree in Financial Economics from Durham University. Dr Stevens also holds Master of Science in Business Finance from Brunel University in London and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Sierra Leone.
He was appointed Deputy Governor in July 2014 and re-appointed to a second five-year term in 2019.
For the advancement of the economy, Dr Ibrahim Stevens is responsible for the monetary stability and has made immense contribution in policy development. Prior to his appointment, he was the Country Programme Director at the International Growth Center (IGC), London School of Economics.
Before joining the IGC, he was Microeconomic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in Rwanda, and head of Project for the German International Cooperation (GIZ)-funded project on microeconomic Adviser to Rwanda.
The project also covered the Central Bank of Rwanda. Before moving to Rwanda, Dr Stevens was a Senior Economist at the Bank of England and had worked for the Bank for ten years.
At the Bank, he worked in Financial Stability, Monetary Analysis and was a Senior Adviser at the Centre for Central Banking Studies (CCBS).
In monetary analysis, he was part of the team that conducted the initial assessment of the effectiveness of quantitative easing (QE), an unconventional monetary policy adopted by the Bank of England in 2009.
That work also involved research on the theoretical and empirical framework for QE.
At the CCBS, his work was mainly to provide policy advice, capacity building and promote collaboration with other central banks. In this role, he had the opportunity to visit over 40 central banks in various countries.
For extended policy collaboration and research, Dr Stevens was a Visitor at the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Central Bank and Director of Columbia.
In 2008-2009, he was seconded to the Bank of Sierra Leone as Senior Policy Adviser and Director of Research. Dr Stevens’s research interest is in financial stability. Monetary analysis and applied financial econometrics.
His work has been published in several international academic journals, including the Economic journal, International Journal of Central Banking and the Journal of Financial Stability, among others.
He has attended numerous international conferences and presented papers on policy-relevant research in financial economics and central banking.
He was a Visiting Fellow at Durham University (2004-2008) and a Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London (2009-2012) where he taught Advanced Macroeconomics.