Yi Gang

Yi Gang served as Governor of the People's Bank of China from 2018 to 2023. He earned a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the PBOC in 1997. As a deputy governor and then governor, he oversaw significant developments in Chinese monetary policy including managing the RMB exchange rate through multiple periods of market stress, the COVID-19 pandemic response, and China's digital currency (CBDC) development through the e-CNY (digital yuan) initiative. Yi was considered a relatively market-oriented central banker by Chinese standards, maintaining communication with international investors and advocating for greater exchange rate flexibility. His tenure saw the RMB added to the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket in 2016 as a milestone in RMB internationalization.