Mark Plant is a senior policy fellow and former chief operating officer of CGD Europe. His appointment to CGD follows a long career at the International Monetary Fund, where he was most recently the director of Human Resources. Prior to that, Plant worked extensively with African countries, culminating in his appointment as deputy director of the IMF’s African Department. He also held a range of senior positions in the Strategy, Policy and Review Department, where he had oversight of the IMF’s policies towards low-income countries, including its work on the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Before joining the IMF, Plant held senior positions in the US Department of Commerce and at the General Motors Corporation. He began his career teaching economics at the University of California, Los Angeles.