Christine Lagarde:

From humble beginnings to the worlds most powerful woman
- A profile
By Essan Ekoniyam in Yaounde with agency reports
The profile of the Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde is clearly intimidating. Born on New Year’s Day of 1956 in Paris, and given the maiden name Christine Lalouette, she became champion of France in synchronized swimming at age 15. She lost her father at the age of 17 and obtained her baccalauréat the following year, after which she won a scholarship to study in the US. Here, she became parliamentary assistant to William Cohen, the future Secretary of State for Defense under President Bill Clinton.
    Upon return to France, Lagarde took a “maîtrise” in law and a “DEA” in social law. She however did not succeed in the entrance exam into the famous ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) of Paris.
    At the end of her studies in 1981, she applied to work for many law firms in France but her application was turned down on each occasion because she is a woman. It was finally an American law firm that gave her employment after she had an interview with…guess who…a woman! The law firm was the France office of Baker & McKenzie, one of the biggest firms in the world.

    Here, Lagarde set up a department of social law. She quickly rose in the legal profession and succeeded to become an associate in 1987. That was also the year she bore her first son, Pail Henri. Her second son, Thomas, was born in 1987. The birth of her children did not however perturb her career.
    In 1991, she was appointed managing associate of the firm. Four years later, the very talented lawyer became a member and in 1999 the president of Baker $ Mackenzie, with a business capital of $1.4 billion. Because of this meteoric rise of hers, the World Street Journal named her the 50th European Businesswoman of the year 2002.
    That was not all. She became the first female Minister of the Economy in France in 2007, during which year Forbes classified her as the 12th most powerful woman on the globe, a position which she never quit until she dropped to the 43rd position in the last publication.
    Barely three years after she came into politics, she, who had been viewed as the successor of Francois Fillon as Prime Minister of France was elected Municipal Councillor of the 12th District of Paris. When in 2010 she was elected again to that post, she turned it down, saying she was very preoccupied with issues of the G20. But that was not before she was elected the best Minister of Finance of the European Union.
    It was therefore not surprising that Christine Lagarde was appointed Minister of Trade in the Villepin government in 2009. She had already worked for the US firm for 18 years! Six years later, she rose even higher as she became the Director of the almighty world financial organ – the IMF.