Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has called for increasing women in top leadership positions, arguing that it will boost global peace and development.

She said this during a side event, ‘IMF Inspired’ conversation with Claire Shipman, journalist and author of women empowerment and leadership books, including ‘Womenomics: Work Less, Achieve More’ and ‘The Power Code: More Joy, Less Ego, Maximum Impact for women and everyone’.

The event, which was on the theme, “Women, power, and leadership,” is part of discussions at the ongoing 2024 IMF/World Bank Group (WBG) Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, USA.

“When we look at the high corridors of power, we still see more men than women, yet if we want to live in a peaceful world, at least bring the women up,” Ms Georgieva, said.

“Women don’t seek power the same way men do, and when they have power, they use it differently. So, we must understand and define it well for the benefit of all – both women and men,” she stated.

She cautioned against resistance to efforts being made to uplift women to contribute to global peace and sustainable development, encouraging support to women to deliver their best at top leadership positions.

“The world was at a time that it was experiencing some push back on equality on the role of women in societies and this tremendous progress we’ve achieved cannot be given away,” Ms Georgieva said.

Ms Shipman stated that while there has been progress, women in top management and leadership positions remained stagnant, a situation, she said was not good for both business growth and societal development.

“The data we have at the workplace in leadership [indicate that] all of the best attributes of a leader are heavily female. The things that women bring are universally valued,” she said.

She also stated that data in the last 20 years showed that more women in senior management means more profitable enterprise, and called for a collective effort to address the systemic problem with power at the highest levels of leadership.

She noted that the world had found itself in an era of backlash in the political and business space, saying that healthy companies that performed better than their competitors were those with more women in senior management positions.

Ms Shipman called for more support to women seeking power with a focus on qualification, adding that, “the more women are at the top, the better the bottom line.”

She said it was important for organisations and societies to think about how to not only welcome women into work places, but motivate them to “want to seek power and understand that you can do incredible things with power.”