Replacing the philanderer with an academic-banker at the IMF

Since 2006, Lipsky has been the second-ranking official at the Fund, a position which has placed him at the epicenter of the financial crisis and its aftermath. Lipsky arrived at the Fund shortly before Strauss-Kahn was selected as managing director (the top IMF post has always gone to a European), and their styles could scarcely be more different. Strauss-Kahn is a politician who speaks off-the-cuff and in layman's terms. For all his personal travils, which predate this latest charge, he has been widely seen as one of the most politically savvy directors in the Fund's history.  Lipsky, by contrast, is an economist and a technocrat whose utterances are almost invariably cautious and precise. No one would characterize him as a politician.

IMF scandal: Meet the man who takes over the Fund | The Multilateralist