Former World Bank president to join Purdue University and its Daniels School of Business

Malpass will serve as the Distinguished Fellow of International Finance at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business and as the Inaugural Fellow of Global Business and Infrastructure at Purdue@DC. He will split his Purdue engagements between Washington, D.C., and Purdue’s campuses in West Lafayette and Indianapolis.

Malpass is an esteemed international economist who most recently served as president of the World Bank Group from April 2019 to June 2023. Since 1984, his public service has ranged from deputy assistant secretary of the treasury and deputy assistant secretary of state to undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs. Malpass has also been a leading economist on Wall Street for many years. He served on corporate and nonprofit boards, including those for the Manhattan Institute, the Council of the Americas and the Economic Club of New York.

“As president of the World Bank, David Malpass has been a truly impactful leader of international finance, infrastructure and business, especially his leadership during the major disruptions to the global economy from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, and the sharp increases in inflation and interest rates,” Purdue University President Mung Chiang said. “His joining the Daniels School of Business is another transformative growth of talent at Purdue University that will provide many exciting opportunities for many of our students and for Purdue@DC.” 

While president of the World Bank Group, Malpass focused on helping countries improve their finances and economic policies to enable faster growth and job creation. He advocated increased transparency in global contracts, digitalization, currency reforms and active steps to build stronger markets and private sectors to improve living standards. During his tenure, the World Bank used strong growth in its funding and country engagement to commit over $450 billion in loans and grants, a 40% increase to meet multiple global crises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Malpass was praised for supporting developing countries’ recovery efforts and leading global efforts to address severe setbacks in health, education, debt, electricity grids, climate costs, and the food and fertilizer supply chains. His recent writings have highlighted the risks to the global economy from fiscal, monetary and regulatory policies.

His role at Purdue will include lectures; faculty research conversations; thought leadership events important to the Daniels School and the university; and meetings with students, alumni and university community members and partners, as well as writing and speaking on markets and global economic leadership.

“It’s outstanding for Purdue to hire this brilliant leader,” said Jim Bullard, the Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean of the Daniels School since August 2023 and former president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “He is well respected in the business world and was a steadfast leader at the World Bank, creating solutions for some of the world’s most pressing issues. His insights and contributions will be relevant and timely to our faculty, staff, students and alumni, and his presence will only add to the momentum that the Daniels School is building.”

“I’m very pleased to be affiliated with Purdue University, its innovative leaders and the business school that builds on Mitch Daniels’ contributions to educational excellence,” Malpass said. “I look forward to sharing my public and private sector experiences to strengthen business leadership and am happy to become part of Purdue’s mission of being a leader in business education.”

Malpass hails from northern Michigan. He earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Colorado College and his MBA from the University of Denver as a Boettcher Foundation scholar. He was a CPA and studied international economics as a midcareer fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. 

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top 4 in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, with 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 12 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap, including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes, at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.