Christine Lagarde: killer shark takes the helm at the ECB

Former IMF chief Christine Lagarde has a reputation for easy manners and good humour, but she has a ruthless streak. She’ll probably need it as she takes up her new role. 

Christine Lagarde © Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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(Image credit: Christine Lagarde © Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

When Christine Lagarde takes charge of the European Central Bank (ECB) at the end of the month she'll need all her political savvy and emollience to deal with "an unprecedented revolt" in the ranks, says Bloomberg. Appointed in July supposedly as the continuity candidate to succeed Mario Draghi Lagarde is coming under pressure to reverse her predecessor's plan to reactivate quantitative easing. Following a September meeting described by one participant as "the most tense" he can remember, a cabal of hawkish big-hitters, led by the Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann (who, awkwardly, she beat to the top job), is shouting loudly for a change of strategy.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.