Only hours after the United States expressed support, the International Monetary Fund has named Christine Lagarde as their new managing director. The new position will put Lagarde, who currently serves as France's Minister of Finance, in charge of the IMF's operations and also appoint her Madame Chairman of the Executive Board for a five-year term beginning July 5. The IMF lead their statement of the appointment with the fact that Lagarde is the first woman to lead the Fund since its inception in 1944. Lagarde argued for diversity when the board interviewed her last week. The Globe and Mail explains Lagarde's efforts to show this in her campaign:

[Ms. Lagarde] set up a twitter account and visited Africa, Brazil, India and China to build support for her candidacy, promising not only to ensure emerging markets and poorer countries have a fair say in the fund’s decisions, but also to get more of their nationals in the IMF’s top jobs. Ms. Lagarde also emphasized her gender, stressing the symbolic value in selecting the first woman to lead an institution where 80 per cent of the managers are men.

“Diversity will strengthen legitimacy, but will also reinforce effectiveness,” Ms. Lagarde said in a statement to the board last week before she was interviewed for the job. “This is an area where progress will be achieved, should I be elected.”

Lagarde beat out Agustín Carstens, the current Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, for the top job.

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Adam Clark Estes