Global Finance & Development
The President of The World Bank
Women in the World Bank
In 2019, David R. Malpass was selected President of the World Bank by its Board of Executive Directors for a five-year term.
Since the formation of the World Bank after WWII, there have been 14 Presidents of the World Bank, which is based in Washington, D.C. and has the US as the major shareholder and country with the greatest voting power.
The President is also president of the entire World Bank Group, which is described as a “family” of five international organizations (the IBRD, IDA, IRC, MIGA and ICSID) that invest heavily in developing countries to boost economic development. Every president has been a US citizen (two naturalized, from Australia and South Korea) except for the sole woman: Kristalina Georgieva of Bulgaria, who was the Acting President of the World Bank for two months in 2019. Georgieva was formerly the European Commissioner for the Budget and Human Resources and 2010’s “European of the Year.”
(0 out of 1 – 0%)
Women in the IMF
The IMF, also formed at the Bretton Woods Conference in the wake of WWII, includes 189 countries fostering monetary cooperation, global trade, high employment, poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth. The IMF is headed by the Managing Director, who is also the Head of the IMF staff and the Chair of the Executive Board.
The IMF has had twelve managing directors in its history, none of them Americans. Interestingly, Kristalina Georgieva of Bulgaria was selected as Managing Director following her brief stint as the President of the World Bank. The previous Managing Director, Christine Lagarde of France, selected in 2011, was the first woman to hold this role. With Georgieva following Lagarde, women have been heading the IMF for a decade now.
(2 out of 2 in last ten years – 100%)
What will it take for women to get into the Power Percentage of The World Bank and the IMF?