MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

IMF should have a new Managing Director by June 30

Shakour Shaalan, the dean of the IMF Executive Board

The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that it is scheduled to complete the process of selecting a new managing director by June 30.

“I am very pleased to announce that the Fund's Executive Board has adopted a procedure that allows the selection of the next managing director to take place in an open, merit-based, and transparent manner. There was broad support in the Executive Board for this procedure,” Shakour Shaalan, the dean of the IMF Executive Board, said Friday in a statement.

The successful candidate for the position of managing director will have a distinguished record in economic policymaking at senior levels. He or she will have an outstanding professional background, will have demonstrated the managerial and diplomatic skills needed to lead a global institution, noted the statement.

As chief of the Fund's staff and as Chairman of the Executive Board, (s)he will be capable of providing strategic vision for the work of a high quality, diverse, and dedicated staff; and will be firmly committed to advancing the goals of the Fund by building consensus on key policy and institutional issues, including through close collaboration with the Executive Board, under whose direction (s)he will fulfill his or her responsibilities. (S)he will have a proven understanding of the Fund and the policy challenges facing the Fund's diverse global membership. (S)he will have a firm commitment to, and an appreciation of, multilateral cooperation and will have a demonstrated capacity to be objective and impartial. (S)he will also be an effective communicator, points out the release.

John Lipsky, acting managing director of the IMF, said at a Thursday event in Washington D.C. that there has been an agreement among the IMF membership that the process of selecting a new leader at the helm should be “open and transparent.”

“An individual may be nominated for the position of managing director by a fund governor or an executive director during a nomination period which shall commence on May 23, 2011 and will close on June 10, 2011,” according to the statement.

The Washington-based agency said its 24-member Executive Board will thereafter meet to discuss the strengths of the candidates and make a selection.

The Executive Board will meet “with the short-listed candidates (or all of the candidates if there were fewer than four) in Washington, D.C. Thereafter, the Executive Board will meet to discuss the strengths of the candidates and make a selection. Although the Executive Board may select a Managing Director by a majority of the votes cast, the objective of the Executive Board is to select the Managing Director by consensus with the objective of completing the selection process by June 30, 2011”.