White House recruits IMF communications chief

Caroline Atkinson will become a special assistant to US President Barack Obama © AFP/File Saul Loeb

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund on Thursday announced its top spokesperson, Caroline Atkinson, is leaving the Fund to become a special assistant to US President Barack Obama.

Atkinson, the director of external relations at the Washington-based global lender, will join the White House in August as “special assistant to the president for international economic affairs,” the IMF said in a statement.

After a career spanning the IMF, the US Treasury and the Bank of England, the British-US national, an Oxford graduate and former journalist, returned to the IMF in November 2008 as head of external relations amid the financial crisis that triggered the global recession.

The White House tried to recruit her, a few months after Obama took office in January 2009, as a deputy to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. But she decided to remain at the Fund.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license