The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to remove the age limit that currently applies to the position of IMF managing director.
Since 1951, the IMF’s by-laws have prohibited the appointment of a candidate aged 65 or over as managing director, and have also prohibited the managing director from serving past his/her 70th birthday.
“Eliminating the age limit would bring the managing director’s terms of appointment into line with those of members of the IMF executive board, which the managing director chairs, and those of the president of the World Bank Group, who are not subject to an age limit,” said the IMF in a statement.
The rule change clears a path for Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, who is 66, to take the managing director’s job.
Mrs Georgieva, who earlier this year was given an Emerging Europe’s Remarkable Achievement Award and who is currently chief executive of the World Bank, was selected as Europe’s choice to lead the IMF earlier in August.