Christine Lagarde Quotes & Sayings

“Regulation is necessary, particularly in a sector, like the banking sector, which exposes countries and people to a risk.”

“To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It's about stimulating them. It's about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.”

“You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.”

“The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.”

“I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.”

“When my father passed away and then when later on I gave birth, those are sort of ground-breaking experiences that put everything else into perspective.”

“I guess economists, it's a bit like scientists; you have definitely fewer women in that field.”

“I hate to say there are female and male ways of dealing with power, because I think each of us has a male and a female part. But based on my own experience, women will tend to be inclusive, to reach out more, to care a little more.”

“I have a theory that women are generally given space and appointed to jobs when the situation is tough. I've observed that in many instances. In times of crisis, women eventually are called upon to sort out the mess, face the difficult issues and be completely focused on restoring the situation.”

“When I started my life as a baby lawyer, I was interviewing with all the best firms then at the time, and one of them was, you know, probably the most reputable in France, and told me, 'You can join us tomorrow and be an associate, be given great tasks and great files and great clients to work on, but don't ever expect to make partnership.'”