Bangladesh appoints first female finance secretary 

Bangladesh today witnessed the appointment of its first female secretary to the Finance Division under the Ministry of Finance.

The appointee, Fatima Yasmin, had been serving as secretary to Economic Relations Division (ERD), there too the first female to do so, since February 23, 2020. 

The post of the finance secretary fell vacant when Yasmin's predecessor, Abdur Rauf Talukdar, was appointed as governor of Bangladesh Bank.

Yasmin earlier served as vice-chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau under the commerce ministry and director general of the Institute of Public Finance under the finance ministry.

She also worked for various ministries including that of agriculture, women and children affairs and defence on joining Bangladesh Civil Service in 1991. 

Outside the government, she worked for Asian Development Bank, European Union, and the United Nation's International Jute Organization.

Yasmin obtained one master's degree in business administration from the Institute of Business Administration of the University of Dhaka and another in development economics from Australian National University. 

She was also a Hubert H Humphrey fellow of the US State Department at the Rutgers University in the US.
 
Moreover, she completed an executive programme on Leading Successful Programs from John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.