Yellen to Take the Helm of San Francisco Fed Bank

WASHINGTON-Dr. Janet L. Yellen will assume the top management position at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank June 14, George Scalise, chairman of the bank, recently announced. Yellen will be replacing current President Robert T. Parry, whom the Credit Union Economics Group met with recently. She will also serve on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the target rates. Parry is retiring after 18 years at the bank. “I’m honored to have been chosen for this key position, and I look forward to meeting employees and community leaders throughout the highly diverse states that comprise the largest district in the Federal Reserve System,” Yellen said. “It will be a pleasure to return to Washington for monetary policy meetings representing the critical economic forces embodied in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Twelfth District.” Outgoing president Parry commented, “She is an outstanding economist, and she made very significant contributions to the monetary policy process during her tenure as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board.” Yellen, 57, was appointed by the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Board and approved by the Fed Governors in Washington, D.C. She joined the Fed Board in 1994, where she served until 1997, when she was asked to chair the President’s Council of Economic Advisers until 1999. She has taught at Harvard and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She currently serves as the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business at the Haas School of Business and Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. Yellen serves as President of the Western Economics Association and Vice President of the American Economic Association and is a Fellow of the Yale Corporation. She has received many honors and awards, her research has been widely published, and she has worked with her husband, George Akerlof, a UC Berkeley Nobel prize-winning economist, on research ranging from the labor market, income, wage and employment issues to a variety of socio-economic issues. Yellen holds a bachelors degree in economics from Brown University and a PhD in economics from Yale. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Bard College and Brown University. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said, “I am pleased to welcome Dr. Yellen back to the Federal Reserve System. She has distinguished herself through consistently incisive analysis, impressive skill and unwavering integrity. We benefited greatly from her exceptional service as a Federal Reserve Board Governor and I look forward to the many contributions she will bring in her new role, to both the San Francisco Bank and the Federal Open Market Committee.” [email protected]