Position: European Central Bank president
Incumbent: Jean-Claude Trichet
Date of Birth: Dec. 20, 1942
Term: November 2003 to October 2011. Not eligible for reappointment.
Key Facts:
-- Trichet has earned plaudits from analysts as a smooth communicator and astute political operator and for his pragmatic policy stance. Under his leadership, the ECB reacted rapidly and aggressively to ease liquidity bottlenecks in the initial phases of the credit crisis.
-- Trichet has seen the limits of his influence tested during the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis, as the ECB has been forced to accept International Monetary Fund involvement in support for Greece and had to backtrack on special lending provisions for Greece and the purchase of government bonds.
-- Originally trained as a mining engineer, Trichet earned a masters degree in economics at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris. In 1969, he attended the elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the civil service training ground for France's political leaders.
-- Trichet spent his early career in a range of posts in the French Finance Ministry and Treasury, including adviser to then President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1978. He was chairman of European Monetary Committee in 1992 during the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis, when the Britain and Italy broke out of the currency trading bands.
-- As Bank of France governor from 1993, he aggressively fought inflation and earned the sobriquet "Ayatollah of the Strong Franc" for pursuing a strong currency policy. He faced down calls from political and business leaders for rate cuts.
-- Trichet's move to Frankfurt was almost derailed when he faced charges of failing to oversee accounts when at the French Treasury in the Credit Lyonnais financial scandal, but he was cleared in June 2003, opening his path to head the ECB.
(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Editing by Paul Simao, John Stonestreet)