Riad Salamé


Riad Salamé is the Lebanese Governor Banque du Liban – central bank of Lebanon since April 1st, 1993
A leading figure in the global banking sector in the 2000s and 2010s and a key player in the Lebanese economy, Salameh is considered as a major actor in steering the Lebanese economy clear of financial meltdown during the 2008 financial crisis.
He is also credited to have maintained monetary stability during the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, the 2006 Lebanon War, the beginning of the Syrian uprising and civil war in 2011 and the 2017 Lebanon–Saudi Arabia dispute.
Riad Salamé was appointed Governor by decree, approved by the Council of Ministers for a renewable term of six years. He was reappointed for four consecutive terms; in 1999, 2005, 2011 and 2017. Riad Salamé chairs the Banque du Liban's Central Council, the Higher Banking Commission, the AML/CFT Special Investigation Commission and the Capital Markets Authority.
Riad Salameh is also a member of the Board of Governors at the International Monetary Fund and at the Arab Monetary Fund.

Early life

Born to a Christian Maronite family on July 17, 1950 in Lebanon, Riad Salamé is the son of Toufic Salamé and Renée Romanos. Riad Salamé attended the Jesuits’ Collège Notre Dame de Jamhour and then graduated with a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut.

Career

Between 1973 and 1993, Riad Salamé worked at Merrill Lynch’s offices in Beirut and Paris as an executive manager. He then became Vice-President and Financial Advisor of Merrill Lynch.
Riad Salamé became Governor of Lebanon's central bank, on August 1, 1993. He was subsequently reappointed for four consecutive terms in 1999, 2005, 2011 and 2017.
Riad Salamé also chairs the BDL Central Council, the Higher Banking Commission, the AML/CFT Special Investigation Commission and the Capital Markets Authority.
He is a member of the Board of Governors at the International Monetary Fund and at the Arab Monetary Fund.
In 2012, Riad Salamé chaired the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group in Tokyo.
On July 1, 2013, Salamé began a two-year term to co-chair the Financial Stability Board Regional Advisory Group for the Middle East and North Africa. He was also Chairman of the Board of Governors of the AMF in 2013.

Endeavors

Edward Gardner of the International Monetary Fund praised Salameh's policies: "You could have thought they had a crystal ball. It was very wise of the Lebanese regulators not to get involved in all these risky international investments that turned out to be the doom of many banking systems."
In a 2009 interview with Executive magazine, when asked about when will Lebanon feel the impacts of the global financial crisis, Salameh answered:
In 2016, he launched the so-called “financial engineering” operations with local lenders, combining a series of swaps including government debt, and local currency and dollar deposits, which managed to attract foreign reserves and helped to support the country's dollar-pegged currency.
During the 2019–2020 Lebanese protests, Salamé had a feud with the Prime Minister Hassan Diab, as the government decided to default on its foreign obligations, but Salamé preferred to keep using foreign reserves to pay interest to international creditors.
On 20 July 2020, Lebanese judge Faisal Makki ordered a protective freeze on some assets held by Salamé after ruling in favour of a complaint that he had allegedly undermined the financial standing of the state, the national news agency reported.