Neel Kashkari, a key figure in the U.S. response to the global financial crisis, has been named head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the bank announced Tuesday. He will take over as president and CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2016.
The Minneapolis Fed is one of 12 regional reserve banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., comprise the U.S. central bank. As head of the Minneapolis branch, Kashkari will participate in the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. monetary policy.
Kashkari first came to prominence during the financial crisis when he served as an adviser to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; and later as assistant secretary, where he oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which used taxpayer funds to bailout numerous financial firms that were facing failure.
Before joining the U.S. Treasury in 2006, Kashkari was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco. Prior to that, he was an aerospace engineer. Since then, he has been managing director at asset management giant Pacific Investment Management Co, LLC, and in 2014 he ran for governor of California, losing to incumbent governor Jerry Brown.
“Mr. Kashkari is an influential leader whose combined experience in the public and private sectors makes him the ideal candidate to head the Minneapolis Fed,” says MayKao Hang, incoming chairwoman of the bank’s board of directors and co-chairwoman of the search committee.