Christine Lagarde Continues To Break Glass Ceilings

Christine Lagarde has made a career out of breaking glass ceilings in the halls of international finance and is now poised to break one more, leading the European Central Bank.

The former lawyer was the first woman to serve as finance minister from any Group of Seven nation and then the first to lead the International Monetary Fund.

The silver-haired Lagarde, 63, took the helm in 2011 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and is credited with steering the Washington-based IMF through turbulent economic waters, including handling of the Greek economic collapse.

Her second five-year term as managing director of the global crisis lender ends in two years, which makes her the second leader of a global financial institution to leave early to move to another position, following Jim Yong Kim’s decision early this year to step down as president of the World Bank.

But as she prepares for an eight-year term leading the ECB in November, she will be in a familiar place as trailblazer at a difficult time, accustomed to being the only woman in the room.

She was the first female chairman of a major global law firm — the US-based Baker and McKenzie — and was France’s first woman economy minister when named by then-President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

She speaks openly about the sexism she has faced in her career, difficulties she faced having a family and a career, and is a fierce advocate for advancing women worldwide.