Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

A Chance to Fix the Way the IMF Picks Its Leader

Lagarde's conviction is a good opportunity to reform an antiquated and unfair process.

December 20, 2016 at 5:07 AM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

There's a better way.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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The board of the International Monetary Fund was right to reaffirm its full confidence in Christine Lagarde as the institution’s managing director despite her conviction for negligence on Monday by a Paris court. She has done a good job as the head of one of the world’s most important multilateral institutions.

But there’s more to be done by the country representatives who govern the IMF. They should be taking the latest set of legal problems as an opportunity to modernize an antiquated and feudal selection process.