ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのDistinguished Leadership Awards 2020 - Kristalina Georgieva

our first segment of our 2020 Distinguished Leadership Awards, honoring the remarkable Kristalina Georgieva.

(A video presentation is shown.)

DENISE FORSTHUBER: Good evening. I’m Denise Forsthuber, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative. It is my honor to introduce this first segment, highlighting two talented and inspirational women who have worked tirelessly to improve people’s lives throughout the course of their careers. Tonight we celebrate Ms. Kristalina Georgieva’s nearly thirty-year career of extraordinary public service, as well as her bold leadership of the International Monetary Fund as it moved swiftly to address the far-reaching economic and societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her unwavering commitment to protecting the health of the global economy and the world’s most vulnerable in this historically uncertain time exemplifies the very essence of distinguished international leadership.

To introduce Ms. Georgieva, it is my honor to welcome Atlantic Council International Advisory Board member, chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group and Albright Capital Management, and perhaps most importantly the United States’ first female secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright. Madam Secretary, thank you for joining us from your home in Washington, D.C. and for allowing me the opportunity to welcome you tonight. It’s a pleasure to be sharing this platform with you. The floor is yours.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Thank you, Denise. And good evening to you all. We gather at a time when the principles to which the Atlantic Council is dedicated are being tested. In the Americas, in Europe, and across the globe too many heads of government have moved away from global collaboration and towards a philosophy of going it alone. These hyper-nationalists argue that interdependence is an illusion, a fiction invented by soft-headed intellectuals to undermine sovereignty and erase singular national identity. This thesis is nonsense, but for officials seeking to enhance their authority, it can be good politics.

The problem for leaders with authoritarian tendencies is that they are less likely than their democratic counterparts to admit—let alone emphasize—the value in cooperating with others. Instead, they treat appeals for international comity as signs of weakness or betrayal. But the coronavirus pandemic has reminded us that strong steps by national governments and vigorous multilateral measures are complementary, not contradictory. The world needs both, which means in turn that we must have leaders worthy of the public trust.

Tonight we are celebrating global figures who have earned that trust by working to adapt and reinvigorate international tools, and I am so honored to now be able to introduce one of them.

Kristalina Georgieva has served as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund since October 1st, 2019. That means she was only in the job a few months before a once-in-a-century pandemic hurtled the global economy into chaos and recession. Fortunately, in Director Georgieva, the IMF has a leader who did not require any on-the-job training. Indeed, she has made her mark over the past thirty years by helping to shepherd large international organizations through periods of remarkable change.

In the 1990’s and 2000’s, she worked at the World Bank, helping the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union emerge from communism’s long shadow. In 2010, she served on the Europe Commission, shaping the agenda of the European Union while responding to both the euro area debt crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis.

As a proud daughter of Bulgaria and as a long-time professor there, Kristalina has brought an invaluable perspective to international institutions that have been overwhelming(ly) staffed and led by Americans and Western Europeans.

I got to know Kristalina well when she left the commission to serve as the World Bank’s CEO and acting president. I was struck by her wisdom, her strength, and her commitment to the values we celebrate tonight, and above all, the idea of collective advancement based on the reality that the most urgent challenges transcend borders and cannot be dealt with by any nation acting alone.

As director of the IMF, Ms. Georgieva is confronting an unprecedented set of crises, but also knows we have an incredible opportunity to renew faith and trust in international institutions. Now that is a tall order, which is why Kristalina recently told the Financial Times that the IMF needs a big bazooka. (Laughter.) While I cannot arm her with such a weapon, I can present her with a much-deserved recognition.

Kristalina, it is now my pleasure to bestow on you, virtually, the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Leadership Award.

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA: Thank you, Madam Secretary, for your kind words. Thank you for the privilege of knowing you. And my sincere thanks to John Rogers, to Fred Kempe and the board of the Atlantic Council for this award. I am greatly honored to receive it alongside my dear friend, Luis Alberto Moreno, until recently president of the Inter-American Development Bank, and the amazing Lionel Richie.

An award from an institution founded to build public support for the Atlantic alliance is invaluable for someone who grew up on the other side of the iron curtain. I felt the impact of this alliance as the curtain was lifted, and I took my improbable journey from Karl Marx University in Bulgaria to the helm of the IMF.

What I learned is that change is unstoppable. You can choose to be in front of it or be rolled over by its advancement. I benefitted from change others led, and I am committed to do my part to lead change for the benefit of others. I am extremely fortunate to have a fantastic team at the IMF as we face a crisis like no other. We will do our part, not only to overcome this crisis, but to make the world we live in a better place for everyone. I will lead the fund to promote the right macroeconomic, financial, and structural policies—yes—but also to be grounded in values that matter in service to humanity: compassion, courage, collaboration.

Compassion—for the people we serve whose lives our policies and programs affect. I will always listen to their voices and work to translate their aspirations into practical actions, listen to all, but especially to those with dire needs and least access to the high corridors of power.

Courage—to do what is right, never to give up mustering support for it, even from people who are not immediately convinced or are even against my plea; also having the courage to admit being wrong when this happens. Do whatever it takes to fulfill the mission my team and I are charged with, and to paraphrase my predecessor, Christine Lagarde, be ready to belly dance if this will achieve bigly results like increasing the IMF’s quotas.

Cooperation—to leverage all of the talents and overcome our differences, solve problems that may appear unsolvable. It is at the heart of the post-war multilateral system, and the system’s rules-based approach has delivered peace and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people.

Great progress has been made. Much of the world has enjoyed long periods of peace, and more than a billion people lifted themselves out of poverty. But the current crisis could put these gains at risk, especially when it comes to poverty and inequality.

The crisis, though, is also an opportunity. We can avoid going down to the wrong path if we are guided by our values and if we work together for a world that is more prosperous, more resilient, more inclusive.

Secretary Albright famously said, “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I’m not going to be silent.”

Over the last decades, I found my voice, and I am determined to use it for the good of people and for the good of our planet. Thank you for trusting me with this award.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Kristalina, thank you for those remarkable words, and your spirit, and the sisterhood. And I’m grateful now for the opportunity to engage you very briefly in a conversation. And I thought I’d simply ask you—very simply—what you fear most about this very moment we are in, and what gives you the most hope as we head into 2021—to really explore more some of the issues that you spoke about.

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA: What I fear most is that we may allow a divergence in the world that have been converging over the last decades with the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, both within countries and across countries. I worry about losing what we have succeeded to achieve in terms of gender equality. We see that women are disproportionately hurt by this crisis. Young people may be a lost generation. So my hope is that we will have the determination to prevent this from happening.

And so far I have been impressed by how we have come together to pour enormous support—fiscal support, monetary support—to put a floor under the world economy in a synchronized manner so those who say collaboration is dead are actually proven wrong. We have to sustain this support. My big message to everybody is please spend. Do not withdraw support for the economy prematurely. We are not out of the woods yet. But also, keep the receipts and spend wisely.

It is so commonsensical that we—when we put big fiscal stimulus in place, it should be for the economy of tomorrow not the economy of yesterday. It should be for green. It should be for smart, digital. It should be for fair economy. And I am—I am an optimist, Madam Secretary. I have seen so often that majority of people have this goodness in them, but goodness is quiet. Anger/hate, very loud. So I see as part of our job, especially women, to amplify these voices of optimism and strength and goodness and transform the world for the better, as the founders of my institution did after the Second World War.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: I have to say, you asked me what pin I was wearing tonight. And I wore it in your honor because it is the globe being held up by your hands, things that you are doing. Thank you so much for everything that you do.

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Secretary. So proud of you.

DENISE FORSTHUBER: Ms. Georgieva, Secretary Albright, on behalf of the Atlantic Council thank you for your thoughtful and candid remarks this evening, and congratulations on this award. You both are an inspiration to women around the world and have certainly paved the way for many, including me, who aspire to make a difference and strive ourselves to shatter the glass ceilings above us. I’m confident my colleague Roberta, who will lead us into our next segment, would agree.