Portrait of the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund

Following the success of Ms. Largarde, the second female General Director of the IMF with remarkable experience in the field of economics and finance, is expected to create new colors in the next 5-year term.

However, in the context of the global economy still facing not so bright prospects, waiting for Ms. Georgieva predicts that the road will not be easy!

Portrait of new IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Photo: IMF

Extensive experience

Born on August 13, 1953, Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva is the daughter of a civil engineer. She holds a PhD in economic sciences and a master's degree in political economy and sociology from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, Bulgaria. At this school, she also held the title of Associate Professor from 1977 to 1993.

During her studies, she became a British Council Scholar at the London School of Economics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From these stepping stones, Ms. Georgieva built a solid foundation of experience to start working at leading agencies such as the World Bank and the European Commission, where she took on various senior roles.

During her time at the European Commission, Ms. Georgieva helped shape many of the European Union's agendas. As Vice President of the European Budget and Personnel Committee, overseeing a budget of 161 billion euros and 33,000 staff, Ms. Georgieva participated in proposing many effective solutions to solve the European debt crisis as well as the refugee crisis in 2015.

At the World Bank (WB), her senior positions include Vice President, WB Director for Sustainable Development, WB Environment Director, Director for Environmental and Social Development in the East Asia and Pacific region... The milestone was that from January 2017, Ms. Georgieva assumed the position of WB Executive Director. From February 1, 2019 to April 8, 2019, she also held the position of WB Interim President for 3 months until Mr. David Malpass, a former senior official of the US Treasury Department, took over this position in April.

On July 26, the IMF Executive Board, consisting of 24 delegates representing 189 member countries, began the process of discussing the selection of personnel for the position of Managing Director of the world's leading financial institution. With an impressive record of experience and interviews exceeding the requirements, Ms. Kristalina Georgieva - the only candidate - was officially selected.

The transfer of power between two female IMF Managing Directors. Photo: Bloomberg

With this decision, Ms. Georgieva becomes the first person from an emerging economy, Bulgaria, to lead the IMF since its establishment in 1944. With a rather calm appearance, not as sharp as her predecessor Christine Lagarde, but with extensive experience, Ms. Georgieva is expected to continue the successes of her previous term; at the same time, implement new policies to ensure the stability of the global economic and financial system. Ms. Georgieva's term will begin on October 1.

A stressful term

In her new role, Ms. Kristalina Georgieva will lead a team of about 2,700 people and four deputies to support her for the next five years. In a speech posted on the IMF's official website, Ms. Georgieva expressed her honor at being chosen to lead the IMF. She emphasized that this is also an extremely big challenge at a time when global economic growth is still disappointing public opinion, trade tensions continue to increase while debt is at a historically high level in the global economy.

Acknowledging the challenges facing the world economy, Ms. Georgieva emphasized that her priority in her new position is to support member countries to minimize the risks of economic crisis and be ready to deal with recession. However, Ms. Georgieva emphasized that we should not lose sight of the long-term goals of building stronger economies and improving the lives of people around the world. These goals need to be implemented on the basis of strong monetary, financial and structural policies. This also means that the world needs to focus on dealing with long-term challenges such as inequality, climate change or rapid changes in science and technology...

According to Ms. Georgieva, to be ready to act, it is necessary to protect the financial strength of the IMF. Therefore, what needs to be done is to strengthen supervision and efforts to develop capacity, paying more attention to the needs of the IMF's own members. Of course, during his term, the new Managing Director of the IMF also needs to maintain and promote the role of the global cooperation forum on trade, financial stability and exchange rates. This is also a financial institution that provides aid to help prevent economic crises as well as finance development projects in member countries with a total amount of funding up to 1 trillion USD.

The International Monetary Fund continues to lower its global economic growth forecast - This is one of the major challenges during the term of new IMF Director General Kristalina Georgieva. Photo: Reuters

These tasks may become even more difficult when recently, the IMF once again lowered its global economic growth forecast for both 2019 and 2020 to 3.2% and 3.5% respectively - both down 0.1% compared to the forecast in April. It should be noted that a growth rate of 3.3% or less would be the lowest growth rate of the world economy since 2009. With unstable growth and a series of unfavorable developments such as the US-China trade war, the Brexit crisis, declining investment and confidence or disruption in global supply chains..., all are creating enormous pressure on the new IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in the next 5-year term!