Search for Replacement New York Fed President Begins

Traders Magazine Online News, January 5, 2018

John D'Antona Jr.

And the search is on…

The New York Federal Reserve Bank is now accepting applications and searching for a successor to William Dudley, its longstanding president.

According to Bloomberg, interviews with 10 members of the Fed’s advisory boards, which the committee is consulting, suggest they want a president with market expertise, crisis-management chops, strong leadership abilities, an eye on inequality and an ear for regional trends.

The NY Fed president is historically a powerful and very public position – and the appointment comes as Jerome Powell has been nominated to replace Janet Yellen as chairman in February and the vice chair slot is vacant.

The New York president has a permanent vote on monetary policy, elevating the appointee relative to the other 11 regional Fed bank presidents, who vote on a rotating basis. The person oversees both big bank supervision and market operations that manage the Fed’s policy rates and balance sheet, which it is carefully shrinking. And beyond that, the job entails keeping close tabs on the region’s diverse economy.

On November 6, William Dudley announced his plans to retire in mid-2018.

“I’m hoping for someone who is as sensitive to information that’s non-conventional, non-traditional, as Bill Dudley was,” said Joseph Carbone, chief executive at The WorkPlace, a workforce development agency, and a member of the bank’s Community Advisory Group, in an interview with Bloomberg. “I want someone who’s going to be willing to look deeply into the numbers and spend as much time talking about the forgotten population.”

The committee tasked with finding candidates to replace Dudley hasn’t divulged any candidates’ names but New York Fed insider Simon Potter, who runs its markets group, Brian Sack, who previously held that position, and former senior Fed Board staffer Nellie Liang have also been discussed as potential candidates. Also, former Treasury economist Karen Dynan has been floated, as has Northwestern University economist Janice Eberly, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Sandra O’Connor, and UBS Securities economist Seth Carpenter.

On its website, the New York Fed says on its website the process is expected to take six to nine months, during which time the search committee will:

• solicit input regarding the key attributes that are important in the ideal presidential candidate from stakeholders across the New York Fed’s district and beyond;

• stakeholders will include representatives from academia, manufacturing, community development organizations, not-for-profits, industry, small businesses, minority and women-owned businesses, and labor members of the search committee will also meet with several of the New York Fed’s advisory groups, including those representing regional interests, communities and small businesses
• identify a diverse slate of potential candidates;

• interview a range of candidates reflecting the diversity of the qualified candidate pool; and,
• recommend to the full Board (excluding the Class A and any ineligible Class B directors) one or more candidates for consideration for appointment as president and CEO, subject to approval by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

The New York Fed has hired search firms Spencer Stuart and Bridge Partners, which focuses on diversity, to help with the process.

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