New IMF Chief vows ‘relentless’ focus on gender equality

WASHINGTON (Reuters): International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday vowed to fight for greater gender equality at the global lender and around the world, telling a packed audience: “Buckle up. It’s going to come.”

Georgieva, the first person from an emerging economy to lead the IMF and only the second woman, told the IMF’s fall meeting that there was hard work ahead, even at the lender, where women account for just 25% of top jobs.

The Bulgarian economist and former World Bank chief executive spoke openly about her battle scars after decades in international institutions. She said economic studies clearly showed that improving gender equality would boost growth.

She said she backed quotas for the private sector to accelerate better representation of women in C-suites, citing IMF studies that companies boosted results by 8% to 11% if they had women on their boards or senior management.

“I am in favour of quotas because otherwise it will take us a very long time to get to where we want to get,” she said. When she took over as chief executive of the World Bank in 2017, Georgieva set a goal of achieving gender parity in top roles, and the bank met that target a year later – two years ahead of schedule.

Georgieva said she would also prioritise pay equity at the lender, noting that it was not until she reached a senior position at the World Bank that she realised how much her salary had lagged that of male counterparts for many years.

She said the gender pay gap averaged 16% in advanced economies and was as high as 37% in South Korea.