Following the demise of DSK as Managing Director of IMF, one of two candidates will be presented as successor and will be announced  on June 30, 2011.  Of the 187 countries part of the IMF conglomerate, Augustin Carstens of Mexico and Christine Lagarde from France are competing for the job of IMF Managing Director for the next five years. 
   As with any job, an interview is expected and this is where you sell your qualifications suitable for the company you are applying to. Here are the job requirements according to the selection process from the IMF website:

    •    The successful candidate for the position of Managing Director will have a distinguished record in economic policymaking at senior levels.

    •    (S)he will have an outstanding professional background, will have demonstrated the managerial and diplomatic skills needed to lead a global institution, and will be a national of any of the IMF’s member countries.

    •    As chief of the IMF's staff and as Chairman of the Executive Board, (s)he will be capable of providing strategic vision for the work of a high quality, diverse, and dedicated staff; and will be firmly committed to advancing the goals of the IMF by building consensus on key policy and institutional issues, including through close collaboration with the Executive Board, under whose direction (s)he will fulfill his or her responsibilities. 

    •    (S)he will have a proven understanding of the IMF and the policy challenges facing the Fund’s diverse global membership. (S)he will have a firm commitment to, and an appreciation of, multilateral cooperation and will have a demonstrated capacity to be objective and impartial. (S)he will also be an effective communicator.
    
   On June 23, 2011, Lagarde spoke of management and direction for her presentation. Making the IMF more relevant, responsive and tougher on surveillance are part of her stragey. Probably aware of the world's growing awareness of IMF's role regarding financial problems, Lagarde also calls for legitimizing the organization.   Perhaps she is unaware of IMF's impact on the world and not the world's impact on the IMF, but she states adjusting the IMF to the changing world.  She has been ranked the 7th most influential woman in the world by Forbes magazine. She also defends her role as a European woman that should not interfere with the outcome of the decision of the next MD of IMF.
    Carstens on June 21, 2011, has stated his ties with the IMF as Mexico's finance minister and IMF deputy managing director from 2003 to 2006.  He favors emerging and developing countries as his focus.  "Advanced economic surveillance" has been light according to him.  Carstens points out weaknesses he feels he can appropriate.  These short comings of the IMF according to Carstens are, Governance, Crisis Prevention, Crisis Resolution and Policy Coordination. He intends to be one step ahead of global developments as opposed to the reactionary statement by Lagarde.  Carstens points out the tendency of MD as being of European descent since 1945 and wishes to break that paradigm.

Information Compiled by Burbia

Sources: http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11253.htm
                 http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2011/pr11246.htm
                 http://www.economie.gouv.fr/christine-lagarde/minister.html
                 http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/mdsp.htm
                 http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mexicos_Carstens_takes_long-shot_...