(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland appointed Beth Hammack, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. veteran, as its next president.
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Hammack, who was most recently co-head of global financing at the Wall Street heavyweight, has more than three decades of experience in finance, capital markets, and risk management. She will replace Loretta Mester, who is stepping down June 30 after a decade in the post.
She will vote on monetary policy decisions this year upon taking office on August 21. Hammack is the fourth woman to lead the Cleveland Fed, which in 1982 became the first of the regional Fed banks to appoint a female president.
The Cleveland Fed announced a nationwide search for a new president in November.
Hammack, 52, joined Goldman Sachs in 1993, holding a variety of roles dealing with agency bonds, rates and repo trading. She was once seen internally as a top choice to become the next chief financial officer — a rare elevation for a woman to one of the bank’s most senior positions.
Her rise was driven in part by her ability to deal with regulators and government bodies after she made partner in 2010. She went on to chair the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee — an influential Wall Street group that has the ear of the US Treasury secretary.
Mester, who has been a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee thus far this year, has generally been considered one of the central bank’s more hawkish policymakers. Last week, Mester said she wants to see a “few more months” of data showing inflation is coming down before lowering interest rates.
Mester launched her career in 1985 as an economist with the Philadelphia Fed, working her way up to director of research before she became president of the Cleveland Fed in June 2014.
Over the past decade, it’s taken an average of eight months to select new regional Fed chiefs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s also involved greater involvement by the Fed board in Washington as well as extensive efforts to consider a diverse field of candidates.
Hammack’s appointment marks the second Fed president job filled this year. The St. Louis Fed named Alberto Musalem, whose career included executive roles at Tudor Investment Corp. and the New York Fed, as its new president in January. He started in April.
–With assistance from Catarina Saraiva and Sridhar Natarajan.
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