2015: Yukiko Okawa Omura
The Economics Department and the Institute for Economic Development presented the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award to Yukiko Okawa Omura.
Omura came to Boston University in 1977, having taken the International Baccalaureate at the International School of Geneva and a B.Sc. (Econ.) at Queen Mary College, University of London. Yukiko graduated with the MAPE from Boston University in 1980. Her initial appointment upon leaving BU was as a project economist in the Infrastructure Division of the Inter-American Development Bank. Starting in 1984, Yukiko then served for ten years as a vice president of J.P. Morgan, based in London and Tokyo. For the next two years, Yukiko became a senior vice president of Lehman Brothers, acting as head of emerging markets and credit for Asia. This was followed by two years as managing director of Union Bank of Switzerland, then three years as managing director of Dresdner Bank AG. With this background in the private sector, Yukiko next returned to the world of the multilateral development agencies. From 2004 to 2008, Yukiko was the executive vice president of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group in Washington, restructuring that agency and achieving a substantial turnaround in their financial role. Moving countries again, in 2010 Yukiko became the vice president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a Rome-based member of the United Nations Development Group specializing in poverty eradication in developing countries. Yukiko now lives in London, where she is a member of several advisory boards and boards of directors.