Who is Ajai Chopra, Ireland's new household name?
Ajai Chopra, the quietly-spoken head of the IMF's mission to Ireland nick-named 'Chopper', is now officially famous on the Emerald Isle.
This is hardly surprisingly, considering the number of photos of him striding past Dublin's homeless beggars on the way to negotiate the €85bn bailout. As the tabloids weren't backwards at pointing out, he also checked into the five-star Merrion Hotel during his stay in Ireland - something apparently to be frowned upon in these austere times.
No one seems more surprised by him becoming a household name than Chopra himself. He told RTE:
I have had a somewhat unexpected and new-found notoriety while I've been here. Everybody has been very gracious and I'm not used to a situation where I've been so recognisable. People have come up to me - and called me by my first name as well - but they've done so in a very polite and very gracious way and they've always wished me the best. The pluck of the Irish has been coming out in this crisis.
So, what do we know about Chopra, and why he was put forward for Ireland's bailout?
He is an IMF lifer
Chopra has been working for the IMF for over 20 years, most recently fighting fires in Europe as mission chief for the UK and Germany prior to that. He also focuses on emerging Europe.
Before joining the European department as deputy director, he worked in the Asia department where he was instrumental in South Korea's recovery from its financial crisis.
His experience in Asia chimes with Ireland's crisis
Ireland's rescue package is not without its critics, no least by those who consider it overly -punitive, but it also finally gives the country an opportunity to put its banking system on a secure footing.
Whether it's the right course of action remains to be seen, but Chopra's previous experience in South Korea suggests he's in a better position than most to make an accurate call.
Three year's into the programme in South Korea, the government had still failed to adequately shore up its banks that were weighed down with non-performing loans - something that provoked a rebuke from Chopra. Similarly, he also accused "zombie" companies of endangering the financial system after saddling them with bad loans worth $100bn. There are some spooky similarities with Ireland here.
He is a student of history
Much of Chopra's published research focuses on the lessons learned from crises hitting individual countries, so expect Ireland's story to be written in the coming years.
One such musing was on Sweden's 1990s financial crisis, generally heralded as model of what to do in such a scenario, published on his blog in August 2009. In it Chopra says that the Swedish resolution wasn't as simple as many believe and, central to this, was that it took its time to decide what action to take:
Speedy action is not everything-a balance has to be struck between time for diagnosis and development of necessary political backing on the one hand, and not allowing the problems to fester on the other. The fact that Sweden avoided "multiple bites at the cherry" suggests it might have got this tricky balance about right.
Let's not forget that the Irish government's speedy action to guarantee bank deposits and debt in 2008 was generally well-received at the time and that the initial bailout of €5.5bn was small when compared to the €50bn figure finally quoted.
With a lack of transparency over just how bad the scenario was for the banks, it's clear that Ireland has taken so many bites of the cherry, we're just left with the pip.
