The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has claimed the global financial crisis may never have happened had women been in charge of the world’s biggest banks.
Christine Lagarde said women have ‘different ways of taking risks’ and make fewer snap decisions than men.
In a US radio interview yesterday, she added that women are still hugely under-represented in finance, including the IMF, where she is the only woman in the boardroom.
Asked if the crash could have been avoided if Lehman Brothers – the investment bank which collapsed in 2008 sparking the financial crisis – had been run by women, she said: ‘I do believe women have different ways of taking risks … of ruminating a bit more before they jump to conclusions.
‘I think that as a result, particularly on the trading floor … the approach would be different.’
Ms Lagarde also revealed how at the beginning of her career she was told by one of France’s ‘most reputable’ firms that she would never be made a partner because of her gender.
She was told by the unnamed firm that she would be taken on, but should not ‘ever expect to make partnership’.
When told this was ‘because you’re a woman’, she declined to take the job and found work elsewhere.
Speaking to NPR, Ms LaGarde said that when she was a ‘baby lawyer’ applying for the best firms, one told her: ‘We’ll take you any time. You can join us tomorrow and be an associate, be given great tasks and great files and great clients to work on, but don’t ever expect to make partnership.’
She also talked about the IMF executive board, which has 24 men representing 188 countries on it.
Ms Lagarde said that she was interviewed by 24 men and no women for her role at the firm because the only female director – who is soon to leave IMF and be replaced by another man – was away.
‘And it’s very unfortunate because, not that these men are incompetent — they’re very competent — but diversity is a richness and we’re not having the benefit of that.’
Ms Lagarde was speaking shortly after the release of an IMF study which found that half the women in the world are not working, and that women are overexploited in work.
In the interview, she also highlighted the fact that the number of women in IMF management has doubled in the last ten years – although, she said, it is still ‘much too low’.
Ms Lagarde said it was her intention to help build the number of women in middle management or upper-middle management at the firm, adding: ‘Where I perceive my role as making a difference is when I can encourage other women.
‘If I’m the single voice constantly in a room full of men, it’s only going to carry the organization so far.’
Source: Daily Mail, UK