The Strongest Women Of 2011
Christine Lagarde: The French Financier Who Seeks To Prevent International Finance’s Flatlining
The 6-foot-tall Christine Lagarde is a former synchronized swimming champion. And in her office, she has a framed caricature of herself as a fishnet stocking-clad dominatrix whipping a banker. Adding a bit of a heavier weight to her bag of eccentricities, Lagarde is also the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
As the world hangs at the precipice of financial disaster, it is Christine Lagarde, a staunch advocate of both regulation and free markets, upon whom many rely to prevent it. And if that is even a possibility at this point, it is she who has the proverbial chops to do so. In addition to her empirical expertise, Lagarde has many “firsts” fastened tightly to her belt: Lagarde is the first woman to hold the position of minister of economic affairs, the first woman to head the IMF, and has been ranked by The Financial Times first as the best minister of finance of the Eurozone.
When asked in a 60 Minutes interview how she felt about those achievements, Lagarde remained markedly humble and eloquent. To her, it doesn’t matter so much that she is the first: “What matters,” she said, “is that I’m not the last.”
Hillary Clinton: The Heaven Sent Secretary of State
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains America’s most admired woman for the past ten years despite the fact that the majority of her time is spent elsewhere: the sky. Racking in over 500,000 miles in her Boeing jet and visiting 80 countries in the three years she has been Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is the political paradigm of independence and persistence.
Described by many as the only one trusted on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, it is Hillary Clinton upon whom many rely to assuage the volatile temperament of Bibi Netanyahu and it is also Hillary Clinton upon whom the United States relies to demonstrate to other international dignitaries that not all of us think Palestinians are an “invented people” or, a la Herman Cain, that national leaders “aren’t supposed to know anything about foreign policy.” Thank God Hillary didn’t win the presidency. The thought of anyone else representing the United States abroad is nightmarish.
