Lagarde takes up IMF post

Former French finance minister Christine Lagarde took up her post as the new head of the International Monetary Fund Tuesday, after countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn quit in May to fight sexual assault charges. The first woman to head the world's key crisis lender, Lagarde, is committed to serve as IMF managing director for five years after three previous directors, all Europeans, left the job early, according to a statement of her terms of appointment.
Lagarde was given a pay package of $467,940 in annual salary net of any taxes, and $83,760 in allowances for maintaining a "scale of living appropriate" to her position. Although not an economist, Lagarde, 55, gained wide respect as France's point-woman during its leadership of the G20 as well as in European debt talks over the past three years.
The divorced mother of two originally trained as a lawyer. After being admitted to the Paris bar in 1981, she joined Baker & McKenzie, specialising in labour and anti-trust issues as well as take-overs. There she quickly rose in the ranks and ultimately moved to the company's Chicago headquarters to oversee global operations. Lagarde entered politics in June 2005 when she was invited to join the government of then-president Jacques Chirac as trade minister.
In 2007 she became France's, and the G-8's, first ever female finance minister. She won the IMF job over Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens, maintaining Europe's 65-year lock on the position, the result of a pact with the United States dating back to the founding of the institution.
The deal has drawn accusations that the Fund is overly aligned with European and US thinking and not sensitive to the situation of emerging and poor economies. "Small countries should have an appropriate voice. Since the global crisis, small countries have faced particular challenges that require greater attention from the IMF," South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said last week after Lagarde was chosen.
Gordhan urged the IMF to push forward reforms include share transfers to developing countries "in order to increase their relative weights in the IMF decision making process, in line with their dynamism in the world economy." Critics also said Lagarde is too close to the eurozone crises to be independent, particularly with still-rocky Greece, where the Fund has made its largest bailout commitment ever.