Welcome back to the Deep Dive.
Today we are opening up the files on one of the most powerful
and frankly one of the most improbable leaders in modern global finance: Christine Lagarde.
We have been deep in the pages of an incredibly detailed in-depth interview transcript
that really charts her entire journey and it is a very unlikely one.
From being a top international lawyer to then serving as a French minister
then leading the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, right through some major global crises.
And now, of course, she is steering the European Central Bank, the ECB, from Frankfurt.
Exactly.
So our mission today for you is to pull out a lot more than just dry economic facts.
We are drilling down into her core leadership philosophy, the strategy and the personality.
Really how a self-proclaimed outsider who is not a trained central banker or a macroeconomist
became the definitive crisis manager for the world's most complicated economic challenges.
And she has done all this while navigating intense political pressure and these massive global shocks.
What makes this profile so compelling is that core paradox she really embodies.
She is fundamentally an institutional outsider.
Always has been.
Yet she has repeatedly been the person institutions turn to when they are facing existential threats.
So what we are going to do is connect her deeply held personal values,
her belief in consensus, her commitment to listening and her almost military-grade preparedness.