Khaled Sakr is a nonresident senior fellow with the empowerME Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Sakr is an international macroeconomist, having spent over twenty-eight years at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and having worked in various senior corporate positions, including mission chief for several developing, emerging, and advanced economies and senior advisor to the dean of the executive board. He has extensive experience working with the economies of the Middle East and North Africa region.

He led the design and negotiations of several reform packages at the IMF, including those related to the Middle East and North Africa, and he navigated difficult political-economy conditions and engaged with domestic and international stakeholders. Sakr was the key author of many IMF reports, and since he left the Fund, he has been contributing opinion articles and providing policy advice on economic reforms and the underlying social and geopolitical dynamics.

Sakr studied economics and politics at Cairo University and the University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD.