Shamshad Akhtar is a Pakistani development economist, United Nations diplomat, banker and politician who served as the caretaker finance minister of Pakistan from 2023 to 2024 as well as from 5 June 2018 to 18 August 2018.

[2][3][4] In December 2013, Akhtar was selected by the UN Secretary-General[3] as Under-Secretary-General and the 10th Chief Secretary of the Monetary and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

[2][4][5] Akhtar started her career in 1980 with the Planning Commission in Islamabad but moved few months later to work with the World Bank's Resident Mission in Pakistan as a country economist.

She left in 1986 for a year-long sabbatical to attend John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as a postdoctoral researcher under the Fulbright Program.

[2] In 2020, Akhtar was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to serve on the Advisory Committee for the 2021 Food Systems Summit, chaired by Inger Andersen.