Postion: Icelandic central bank governor
Incumbent: Mar Gudmundsson
Date of Birth: June 21, 1954
Term: Took office on Aug. 20, 2009
Key facts:
-- Gudmundsson was an official at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) as deputy head of its monetary and economic department when he became head of the Icelandic central bank.
-- Before the BIS, he had a long career in Iceland, including as central bank chief economist from 1994-2004.
-- From 1988 to 1991 he had been chief economic adviser to the minister of finance.
-- Gudmundsson became permanent head of the central bank after an interim appointee, Norwegian Svein Harald Oygard, took over from predecessor David Oddsson, who was in charge during the financial meltdown in late 2008, when Iceland's top three banks collapsed.
-- Under Gudmundsson, the central bank further pursued a series of rate cuts, which took the policy rate down over two years from a peak of 18 percent to 4.25 percent in early February 2011.
-- The main challenge for Gudmundsson, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, is to loosen the capital controls which Iceland imposed during the worst of the crisis, without destabilising the crown.
-- A central bank-led group outlined in March 2011 a cautious plan to phase out the controls. The first phase will give foreign investors holding crowns the chance to swap them for foreign currency.