A file picture taken on February 14, 2011 at the EU headquarters in Brussels, shows France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde attending a working session.Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images
Call her Maestro.
Christine Lagarde, the former French finance minster who started her new job as managing director of the International Monetary Fund 24 hours ago, confronted questions over her qualifications by comparing herself to the head of an orchestra.
Unlike her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Ms. Lagarde is not an economist. She is a lawyer, causing some to question whether she will be able to effectively lead an institution populated with hundreds of PhDs from the world's best economics schools.
To this, Ms. Lagarde noted that conductors tend not to be masters of all the instruments in their orchestras. "I will be a good conductor," she said at a press conference Wednesday.
At this stage, Ms. Lagarde isn't planning major changes to the tune played by Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in May to defend sexual assualt charges in New York. Her biggest worries, like Mr. Strauss-Kahn's, are debt in many developed countries and the effect of capital flows on emerging markets.
On the biggest issue of the day, Maestro Lagarde showed an ability to quickly bring about silence. She declined to say much about the situation in Greece, saying she was awaiting a briefing on the matter later today and the IMF's executive board was scheduled to meet on the matter on Friday.
When asked if she thought the European Central Bank's opposition to a Greek default was exaggerated, Ms. Lagarde suggested the fallout from the decision to allow Lehamn Brothers to collapse in September 2008 was a lesson that bankruptcy isn't the simple solution it appears to be.
"We've been burnt once," she said. "It's better to be shy this time."