The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that was created on July 22, 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference and came into existence on December 27, 1945 when 29 countries signed the Articles of Agreement. It originally had 45 members. The IMF's stated goal was to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world’s international payment system post World War II. Countries contribute money to a pool through a quota system from which countries with payment imbalances can borrow funds on a temporary basis. Through this activity and others such as surveillance of its members' economies and policies, the IMF works to improve the economies of its member countries. The IMF describes itself as “an organization of 188 countries (as of April 2012), working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty.” The organization's stated objectives are to promote international economic cooperation, international trade, employment, and exchange rate stability, including by making financial resources available to member countries to meet balance of payments needs. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo (born 18 March 1949) is a Spanish political figure who served in the government of Spain as Minister of the Economy from 1996 to 2004; a member of the conservative People's Party (PP), he was also First Deputy Prime Minister from 2003 to 2004. Subsequently he was Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2004 to 2007.

Rato was appointed to become the Managing Director of the IMF on 4 May 2004, and took up his duties on 7 June 2004. He left his post at the IMF on 31 October 2007, following the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings. He was president of Bankia between 3 December 2010 and 7 May 2012 until bankruptcy.

Rodrigo de Rato was born in Madrid, into a rich textile owning family from Asturias. He is the great grandson of Faustino Rodríguez-San Pedro and the son of Ramón Rato. De Rato attended a Jesuit school before studying law in the Complutense University.

In 1971 he went to University of California, Berkeley, where he received an MBA in 1974 from the Haas School of Business. In 1975 he became involved in the family business, first in Fuensanta, an Asturian mineral water company, and then in two Madrid construction firms. He also became involved in expanding the Cadena Rato chain of radio stations.

Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (née Lallouette; born 1 January 1956) is a French lawyer who has been the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since 5 July 2011. Previously, she held various ministerial posts in the French government: she was Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry and before that Minister of Agriculture and Fishing and Minister of Trade in the government of Dominique de Villepin. Lagarde was the first woman ever to become Minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy, and is the first woman to ever head the IMF.

A noted antitrust and labour lawyer, Lagarde made history by becoming the first female chair of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. On 16 November 2009, the Financial Times ranked her the best Minister of Finance in the Eurozone.

On 28 June 2011, she was named as the next MD of the International Monetary Fund for a five-year term, starting on 5 July 2011, replacing Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Her appointment is the 11th consecutive appointment of a European as head the IMF. In 2011, Lagarde was ranked the 9th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.

Stevie Salas is an American guitarist known for his work on George Clinton's albums, his collaborations with Koshi Inaba of B'z, and Hardware. He was in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, providing the fingerwork for George Carlin's guitar solo.

He has worked with many in the music industry, including Steve Vai, Rod Stewart, Sass Jordan providing guitar for several of her albums, T.M. Stevens, Justin Timberlake, among others. He helps create studio bands for American Idol and continues to tour in Europe and Japan, as well as release his solo albums.

In 2007, the UK independent record label, Invisible Hands Music, released his first-ever career retrospective, The Sun And The Earth.

Salas attended high school in San Diego, where he played in a rock band called This Kids, which toured the Southwest and released two EPs. In 1985, Salas moved to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. He lived there for a year without much success, almost starving to death (Salas says he lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg) because of hunger). In 1985, he received a job as custodian for a small recording studio in Los Angeles where one night at 3a.m. he was awoken by George Clinton, who was looking for someone to play some chords on a song he was making. Salas offered his services. When he went into the studio, Salas said he began to play all sorts of weird stuff on the guitar and in turn, he was hired to play some tracks on George Clinton's 1986 release, R&B Skeletons in the Closet.