Diversity and openness are Christine Lagarde's priorities for IMF

The new head of the International Monetary Fund has pledged to diversify the global lending organisation and make it more open for developing countries.

Christine Lagarde is the first woman to lead the IMF. She takes over after a sex scandal led her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to resign.

Ms Lagarde is under pressure to address the institution's reputation as a melting pot of international elites - known for male-dominated clubbiness well before the scandal.

Ms Lagarde said she will push to make the institution's staff more diverse and to increase the voice of developing countries on the IMF's board. She said she will continue reforms begun last year that increase the voting power of countries including China and Brazil.

"The value of diversity is top on my list of priorities," she said yesterday in her first news conference since taking the role. "It's not just gender diversity. It's about culture, it's about academic background."

Ms Lagarde, who has training as a corporate lawyer but not an economist, was asked directly whether she was qualified to hold the job, which among other things involves deciding the disbursement of tens of billions of dollars to needy countries.

She said: "I'm not going to brag about my qualifications or lack of qualifications. I think the truth of the pudding is in the eating, as you say. We'll see how it goes."

The former French finance minister is facing many immediate challenges. She must convince the developing world that her IMF will be a more open place for non-Western nations. At the same time, she will have to persuade her fellow Europeans to take painful steps to avoid a default by Greece.

She is the 11th European to lead the IMF, extending a streak that began with the organisation's creation in 1945.

Ms Lagarde has said that her first priority is to unify the IMF's staff of 2,500 employees and 800 economists and restore their confidence in the organisation.

Strauss-Kahn resigned in May to fight charges that he sexually assaulted a New York City hotel maid. He has been freed from jail as the case against him has weakened. Prosecutors acknowledge the woman who accused him of attacking her has lied about aspects of her background.

But Strauss-Kahn also faces a new criminal complaint in France: a novelist has accused him of attempting to rape her eight years ago. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have called the allegations "imaginary".

The 187-member IMF loans money to countries with troubled finances and provides economic advice to world leaders.

Ms Lagarde will be paid $467,940 per year, after taxes, according to her IMF contract.She will also receive $83,760 to allow her to "maintain, in the interests of the Fund, a scale of living appropriate to your position".

The contract also states that Ms Lagarde is "expected to observe the highest standards of ethical conduct" and "shall strive to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in your conduct".

Ms Lagarde will also undergo ethical training, the contract states. Strauss-Kahn's contract did not include similar language.