The man behind the $700 Billion bailout plan initiated during the George W. Bush administration and carried forward by the Obama White House, to save major banks considered “too big to fail” has been appointed head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Neel Kashkari, 42, who served in the U.S. Treasury as Secretary Hank Paulson’s federal bailout chief, and made a failed bid for the U.S. Congress from California, has been appointed the 13th president and chief executive officer of the Minneapolis bank effective Jan. 1. He replaces another Indian-American, Narayana Kocherlakota whose term ends Dec. 31. Kocherlakota has led the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis since 2009 and announced last December that he would not seek reappointment following the conclusion of his term in February.
As president of the Minneapolis Fed, Kashkari will participate on the Federal Open Market Committee to formulate U.S. monetary policy. He will oversee 1,100 employees in Minneapolis and Helena, Mont., who conduct economic research, supervise financial institutions and provide payments services to commercial banks and the U.S. government, along with other supporting activities, a Nov. 10 press release from the bank said.
Kashkari has had a varied career spanning both the private and public sectors. Most recently he was managing director and member of the executive office at PIMCO. In January 2013, he resigned to explore a run for public office. One year later, he announced his candidacy for governor of California. He came in second in California’s nonpartisan blanket primary, but lost the general election to incumbent governor Jerry Brown.
Kashkari served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2006 to 2009, first as senior adviser to Secretary Henry Paulson and then as assistant secretary of the Treasury. In the latter role, he established and led the Office of Financial Stability and oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) for both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Before joining the Treasury Department, Kashkari was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco. Prior to that, he was an aerospace engineer at TRW Corp.
Kashkari stood out among the numerous other applicants for the job “because of his inspiring leadership skills, solutions-oriented nature, collaborative style and deep commitment to public service,” MayKao Hang, incoming chair of the Minneapolis Fed’s board of directors and co-chair of the search committee, is quoted saying in the release. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the Federal Reserve System, the nation’s central bank.
Kashkari was born in Akron, Ohio, and has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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