Christine Lagarde May Depart ECB For WEF Before 2027

ECB president Christine Lagarde may depart the European Central Bank (ECB) before her tenure ends in 2027 to take over the vacant role of chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) following the departure of WEF founder Klaus Schwab.

Klaus Schwab, who left the WEF in April, states practical arrangements, such as an apartment in Switzerland, had been made available for Lagarde to take over the organization before her tenure at the ECB ends in 2027.

Schwab had told the Financial Times that Lagarde had been at the center of a plan both had discussed for “several years” for her to replace him as head of the WEF, the body behind the annual meetings of the business and political elite at the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Lagarde’s ECB Tenure

Christine Lagarde currently has a non-renewable eight-year term at the ECB, which runs until the end of October 2027, having been appointed in 2019.

Since taking office at the ECB in 2019, she has steered the central bank through Covid-19 and a once-in-a-generation surge in inflation that followed pandemic lockdowns and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

If the arrangement goes through, the 69-year-old former IMF managing director and French finance minister would be the second ECB president after Wim Duisenberg to leave the Frankfurt-based institution early. Lagarde could also expect a doubling of her annual salary, which last year stood at €466,000, compared with about SFr1mn that Schwab made.