Mir Nadia Nivin Appointed New IDRA Chairperson

Staff Correspondent: The government has appointed Mir Nadia Nivin as the new chairperson of the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA), Bangladesh’s insurance regulator.

The Financial Institutions Division under the Ministry of Finance issued a notification on Tuesday (16 June) approving her appointment. According to the notification, she has been appointed on a contractual basis for a three-year term from the date of joining, subject to relinquishing all affiliations with other institutions and organisations.

The position had remained vacant since former IDRA Chairman Dr Aslam Alam resigned on March 2. Since then, there had been widespread speculation in the insurance industry over who would lead the regulator.

In May, the government amended the law governing the appointment of the IDRA chairman and members. The amendment removed the age limit for appointments while retaining the previous experience requirements.

Mir Nadia Nivin served as a member of the interim government’s Electoral System Reform Commission. She also joined Delta Life Insurance Company as an independent director in October 2025. According to a source at Delta Life, she still holds that position.

In an interview published by online English news outlet The Prestige on April 13, Mir Nadia Nivin said she was born in Kuwait and attended an English-medium school there for several years before returning to Bangladesh with her parents while she was in fourth grade.

She received a master’s degree from California State University, Sacramento in 2006 and also completed a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University.

Mir Nadia Nivin began her professional career in August 2007 as a Programme Officer at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She also worked with the Bangladesh government’s Access to Information (a2i) programme.

Her international career started in 2009 with an assignment in Germany. She later joined UNDP’s headquarters in New York as a member of the Global Elections Team, which provided policy support on electoral matters to UNDP country offices around the world.

In 2013, she worked in Afghanistan as an Elections Programme Specialist. Her work there covered elections, parliamentary affairs, public financial management, local government, central administration capacity building and gender equality initiatives.

Over the following years, she worked in Pakistan’s former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where she was involved in programmes for the rehabilitation of displaced communities.

In 2018, she worked in Malaysia and collaborated with several national institutions, including the Election Commission, Parliament, the Prime Minister’s Office and anti-corruption policy bodies.

In March 2020, Mir Nadia Nivin joined a programme in Myanmar, where she worked on digital healthcare, cross-border vaccination initiatives and the United Nations’ first artificial intelligence-based human rights programme.