IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is suspected of irregularities. Photo taken in Washington on October 15, 2019 (AFP / Olivier Douliery)
Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, who was bolstered in her post as Managing Director of the IMF on Monday evening despite suspicions of irregularities, is an economist respected for her solid experience in international finance.
Ms. Georgieva, 68, took over as head of the International Monetary Fund on October 1, 2019 after the departure of Frenchwoman Christine Lagarde, appointed to the European Central Bank.
Two years later, the Board of Directors reaffirmed “its full confidence” in it after an internal investigation into accusations of data manipulation in favor of China when it was number 2 in the World Bank. “Unfounded” facts, according to her.
Recognizable by her boyish cut, she was the only candidate for the head of the IMF who is traditionally in the hands of a European while the World Bank is headed by an American, according to a division inherited from the creation of the two Bretton Woods institutions.
However, the IMF had to change its statutes to be able to ratify her appointment since Ms. Georgieva exceeded the age limit, then set at 65 years.
She had previously spent most of her career at the World Bank until becoming its Managing Director in 2017.
A native of Sofia, where she taught economics for 26 years, she had forged an expertise in environmental issues by multiplying roles in the fields of sustainable development and agricultural issues in particular.
At the IMF, it has displayed its main priorities: the fight against inequalities, the integration of women in the economy and especially the fight against climate change.
– Women and climate –
She had taken the reins of this institution in a global economy weakened by trade tensions between the United States and China.
But she was far from imagining that a few months later, the planet, sick with Covid-19, would plunge into a historic recession.
The one who is described by her supporters as one of the “most upright” people also did not imagine being under the fire of serious accusations.
It was “a difficult episode on a personal level,” Georgieva reacted Monday evening, stressing that “trust and integrity are the cornerstones of multinational organizations” which she “has faithfully served for more than four decades”.
Kristalina Georgieva is “a daring leader who has been able to cope with the economic fallout of the pandemic and who has positioned the Fund as a global pioneer (in the fight against) climate change”, opined the American economist and Nobel at the end of September. of economics Joseph Stiglitz, as a support.
Other economists had praised the fact that it was able to convince member countries of the need to increase IMF reserves in order to help the most vulnerable countries in the face of the crisis caused by the pandemic.
In addition to her functions in the Washington institutions, Kristalina Georgieva held the post of European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid between 2010 and 2014, when she had to replace Bulgaria’s initial candidate at short notice.
Then, between 2015 and 2016, she was Vice-President of the Juncker Commission in charge of the budget and human resources.
She has acquired a reputation as an energetic and tenacious senior civil servant, “knowing how to show a tough character if she defends a dossier which is close to her heart”, testified a diplomat during his first visit to the European institutions.
In 2016, this always smiling and outgoing diplomat, who emphasizes the capacities to convince and to form consensus, had already been an unexpected finalist of the election for the post of Secretary General of the UN, finally attributed to the Portuguese Antonio Guterres.
World Bank number two Kristalina Georgieva in Vienna on December 18, 2018 (AFP / JOE KLAMAR)
As a child, she was described as a little girl “who did not stick her head out of her books”.
Her father, Ivan, was a road technician in communist Bulgaria where Kristalina Georgieva was born on August 13, 1953, the year of Stalin’s death.
She is fluent in Russian and developed a good relationship in Moscow during her years as Director for Russia at the World Bank, between 2004 and 2007.
Politically, this mother of a child has never held elected office in her country but does not miss an opportunity to cite her homeland as an example.
Dt / mlb