Not all the central bank governors in Hong Kong this September for the IMF/World Bank annual meetings are staid middle-aged men in suits.
According to Who's Who in Central Banking, a directory published by Flemings, the world's youngest central bank boss, Oraz Jandosov, governor of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, is a mere 35. At the other extreme, US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is 71.
The longest-serving governor is Abdulla Hassan Saif of the Bahrain Monetary Agency with 16 years in office. The Bank of Thailand has the fastest turnover of governors: three in the past year: Chaiyawat Wibulswasdi, appointed in August, is the most recent.
Central banking is still mainly a boy's club, but there are three women central bank governors in the world: Sirkka Hamalainen of Finland, Bodil Andersen of Denmark and Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz of Poland.
Hamalainen is unusual in that she admits to having interests outside finance. She is a board member of the Finnish National Theatre and is on the council of the Savonlinna Opera Festival Association.
Perhaps she will hit it off with the governor of the Central Bank of Iceland, Birgir Gunnarsson, who says he enjoys not only music but also forestry.