Ivar Rooth
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Ivar Rooth
Ivar Rooth (2 November 1888 - 27 February 1972) was the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s second Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board, serving from 1951-1956.
He was born on November 2, 1888, in Stockholm, Sweden.
He graduated from Uppsala University with a Law degree in 1911.
In his early career he was: Solicitor for the Handelsbank (Commercial Bank) of Stockholm (1914); head of Bank's Commercial Credit Department (1915); Assistant Manager and Solicitor of Stockholm Mortgage Bank for several years; Governor of the Central Bank of Sweden ( Sveriges Riksbank, 1929-1948); Director of Bank of International Settlements (1931-1933 and 1937-1949).
In 1951 he headed a mission to Iraq for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and on April 10 of the same year he was appointed Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board of the IMF, assuming his duties on August 3, 1951.
Rooth, in
his first address to member countries as Managing Director of the
IMF on September 11, 1951, stated that the Fund "sought removal or modification of exchange restrictions and other discriminatory practices" aimed at a freer flow of international trade and payments.