With Lagarde, IMF breaks from its past

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

During her interview for the top job at the International Monetary Fund last week, Christine Lagarde noticed a striking pattern.

All the questions came from men.

“There was not one single woman,” the French Finance Minister said Tuesday on French television.

Now there is.

On Tuesday, the IMF’s 24-member board decided she should become the first woman to lead the global lending organization, which is recovering from a sex scandal involving the man she’ll replace.

When she begins a five-year term next week, Lagarde will take charge of a melting pot of international elites — one that was known for male-dominated clubbiness well before the scandal involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, her predecessor.

Not everything will change. Lagarde will become the 11th European to lead the IMF, extending a streak that began with the organization’s creation in 1945.

Among the challenges that await her, she must prod fellow Europeans to take painful steps to prevent a default by Greece.

She’ll also face pressure from developing nations that want a greater voice at the IMF.

“I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me,” Lagarde said in a statement in Paris after the vote.

Should Lagarde, 55, succeed in changing the IMF’s culture, it may have less to do with her gender than with her experience in corporate America.

Before she entered politics in 2005, Lagarde led the Chicago-based international law firm Baker & McKenzie for five years.

Her selection became all but assured once the Obama administration endorsed her earlier Tuesday.

She had also won support from Europe, China and Russia.

Mexico’s Agustin Carstens challenged her, but his candidacy never caught fire.

Lagarde said her first priority is to unify the IMF’s staff of 2,500 employees and 800 economists and restore their confidence in the organization.