Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Tharman was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in the Singapore Cabinet following the General Elections in May 2011.  He continues as Minister for Finance, a responsibility he has performed since Dec 2007, and now serves also as Minister for Manpower.

He spent much of his earlier professional life at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and integrated financial regulator, where he was chief executive before his entry to politics in 2001.  He has served in economic and education appointments since then, including five years as Minister for Education.  In May 2011, he was also appointed Chairman of MAS.

Tharman was appointed in May 2009 by PM Lee Hsien Loong to lead the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC), which brought together business, union and government leaders in 2009 to chart directions for Singapore for the decade ahead.  The ESC’s recommendations, aimed at creating an advanced economy with quality jobs and higher incomes for all Singaporeans, were accepted by the Government in Feb 2010 and are being implemented.

Tharman was appointed Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the policy steering committee of the IMF, in March 2011.  He was also admitted to the Group of Thirty, also known as "The Consultative Group on International Economic and Monetary Affairs", in June 2008.

Besides serving as Member of Parliament for Jurong GRC, he is Chairman of the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute; and Chairman of the Council of Advisors of the Singapore Industrial and Services Employees Union (SISEU).  He also chairs the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA), which seeks to uplift educational performance and aspirations in the Indian Singaporean community.

Tharman did his undergraduate and masters education in Economics at the London School of Economics and Cambridge University.  He later obtained a masters in Public Administration at Harvard University, where he received the Lucius N Littauer Fellow award for outstanding performance and leadership potential.  He became the fifth recipient of the Award of Honorary Fellow of the Economic Society of Singapore, in July 2010.

Married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a lawyer by background and now actively engaged in community work and the non-profit arts sector.  They have four children, three boys and a girl, in their mid to late teens.