Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director... and French ;)

Hi guys! 

We are a little bit late this week but we are always in! 

Let’s speak about personalities today, I mean celebrities or famous businessmen (or businesswomen, in my case). Effectively, I would like to introduce you one of the more powerful woman in the world, I mean Christine Lagarde. I guess some of you know this woman, but I am not pretty sure all of you guys!

 

Quickly, Christine Lagarde currently holds the 11^th Managing Director position of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), since July 2011. We will get back about her position in the last paragraph.

So, who’s she? I mean, where does she come from, when was she born, and what kind of studies did she follow?  Christine Madeleine Odette Lallouette (4 first names, as usually found in “great families”) was born on January 1^st 1956 (so, she is currently aged of… 58 years old, great guys!), in the City of Love (not the City of Sails…), in a beautiful and far away country named France. About her educational background, she just followed “regular classes” in France: High School at Le Havre city (in the north) till succeeding her A-level. Then, she went on an American Field Service scholarship where she spent a year studying English. Finally, she went back to France and succeeded for a Master’s Degrees at La Defense University, in English about Labour and social law, and graduated in the meantime at the “institute d’Administration des Entreprises” of Aix-en-Provence. She also prepared the famous ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) – specific school in which you are following politics-related courses, in the aim to be politician – but failed at the entrance exam. Otherwise, she was promoted Order of Legion d’Honneur (highest French honour medal), and also, Commander of the Order of “Merite Agricole”.

Following to these studies, she went back in the USA for her first job, in the famous international law firm (Baker & McKenzie) in 1981 in Chicago. After 25 years in the USA, she went back in France, directly in the politics, named as France’s Trade Minister between 2007 and 2009. She changed positions twice (Minister of Agriculture, then Minister of Finance) before leaving the French politics for a new job in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for a 5-year term. She assumes this important position since July 2011, and remains one of the more powerful women thanks to that. This last intervention, on beneath of the IMF, was on Wednesday 3^rd of April, warning about the slow global economic growth, and particularly warmed the Euro-zone about an imminent hazard of deflation without strong economic actions from the European Central Bank (see more on BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26861903).