Nominated by MISSives Guest Editor, Apoorva Kallianpur
Christine Lagarde is the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), the first female to serve as president of the ECB and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the first woman to serve as Chief of Finance for any G7 country, where she was the Chief of Finance for France. She believes that more women in the workplace is critical to the success of an economy.
As a former lawyer, she is an advocate for removing the constitutional principles which prevent women from freely participating in the workforce, particularly in developing countries. During her tenure as President of the IMF, she made female empowerment a key goal for the organisation. This led to extensive research being undertaken into the 88% of countries that had restrictions against women in the workplace as part of their laws. As a result, Japan increased the budget for childcare facilities, Morocco was urged to change their inheritance laws and Egypt, Niger, Jordon and Mongolia incorporated gender-specific policies as part of their budget.
