President Nancy Birdsall was quoted in a Washington Post article about Christine Lagarde and the IMF.
From the Article
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde on Tuesday became the first woman and the first non-economist appointed to head the International Monetary Fund, an agency that is facing some of its deepest challenges since its founding 66 years ago.
She will have to jump immediately into crisis negotiations over Greece, navigate demands from developing nations for more power in the agency, and cope with the internal fallout from the sexual assault arrest of former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Lagarde is a lawyer by training and a skilled diplomat by reputation, and her ability to tackle those issues — more the province of a negotiator than the PhD economists that have run the fund since it was founded after World War II — will define the success or failure of a five-year term that will begin July 5.
Lagarde, 55, was chosen by the IMF board over Mexican central bank governor Agustin Carstens, leaving the agency in the hands of a European, as it has been for more than 60 years.
But although she began the competition with a head start — major European powers endorsed her before knowing who else might vie for the job — IMF officials and others familiar with the process say her political savvy elevated her above the more technocratic Carstens to win the position as a consensus choice.
The former chairman of the Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie law firm, Lagarde is known for her disarming sense of humor — she quips about the dangers of “too much testosterone in one room” — and her knack for drawing consensus out of conflict. When European leaders stalled in talks over Greece’s crisis last year, Lagarde received credit for convincing the group that it needed to “shock” markets with an overwhelming commitment of support for the entire euro currency area — an argument that carried the day with the establishment of a $1 trillion emergency fund.
The United States endorsed her candidacy on Tuesday, joining major developing nations including Brazil, India and Russia.
The French finance chief issued a brief statement saying she was “deeply honored by the trust placed in me” to guide the 187-member organization, which manages a $326 billion fund that makes loans to troubled countries and monitors the global economy.
Lagarde gave a more detailed outline of the challenges she faces in an earlier statement to the fund’s 24-member board. She spoke of “healing” the “open wounds” left at the agency after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest on sexual assault charges and earlier reprimand for having an affair with an IMF staff member — an incident that called into question the rigors of the agency’s ethics rules.
Following Strauss-Kahn, “it is lucky for the IMF and for the Europeans that their best candidate was a woman,” said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development.