Tuesday 16 July 2019 4:28 pm | Updated: Tuesday 16 July 2019 4:30 pm

Race begins for IMF top job as Christine Lagarde submits resignation

Christine Lagarde will leave her post as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 12 September after she today formally submitted her resignation.

Lagarde has been chosen to be the next head of the European Central Bank (ECB), and will take over from Mario Draghi who has spent eight years at the helm.

After submitting her resignation, the former French finance minister said she had “made this decision in the best interest of the Fund”. She said it will speed up the selection process for finding her successor.

David Lipton, a former US presidential adviser and managing director at Citi, will continue as acting managing director of the Fund, a powerful global financial institution that acts as a lender of last resort to countries in need.

“The executive board will now be taking the necessary steps to move forward with the process for selecting a new managing director,” Lagarde said in her statement.

Among those touted for the top job is outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who will leave his post in January.

Last week Carney refused to be drawn on whether he wanted the job. “There’ll come a time when that process launches and that’s probably the right time to answer that question,” he said.

By tradition the Fund is headed by a European, while its sister institution the World Bank is run by an American. Carney would qualify under these rules as he has Irish and British citizenship, despite being the first Canadian to be governor of the BoE.