Chair of the Federal Reserve

As stipulated by the Banking Act of 1935, the chairman is chosen by the president from among the sitting governors to serve four-year terms with the advice and consent of the Senate.^{[2][9][10][11]} The Senate Committee responsible for vetting a Federal Reserve chair nominee is the Senate Committee on Banking.

By law, at meetings of the board the chair presides, or in the absence of the chair, the vice chair presides. In the absence of the chair and the vice chair, the board elects a member to act as chair pro tempore.^[12]

Under the chair's leadership, the Board's responsibilities include analysis of domestic and international financial and economic developments. The board also supervises and regulates the Federal Reserve Banks, exercises responsibility in the nation's payments system, and administers consumer credit protection laws.^[13]

By custom, the chair also chairs the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which directs short-term U.S. monetary policy. Although the statute and rules of the FOMC allow it to elect any member as its chair,^[14] it has always chosen the chair of the Board in practice.

By law, the chair reports twice a year to Congress on the Federal Reserve's monetary policy objectives. The chair of the Federal Reserve also testifies before Congress on numerous other financial issues and meets periodically with the treasury secretary, who is a member of the president's Cabinet.^[15]

The law applicable to the chair and all other members of the board provides (in part):

No member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System shall be an officer or director of any bank, banking institution, trust company, or Federal Reserve bank or hold stock in any bank, banking institution, or trust company; and before entering upon his duties as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System he shall certify under oath that he has complied with this requirement, and such certification shall be filed with the secretary of the Board.^[16]

The chair of the Federal Reserve is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule,^[1] thus earning the salary for that level (US$246,400, as of April 2024).^[17]

Following the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913, the United States secretary of the treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo became responsible for overseeing of the establishment of the Federal Reserve system. He became the ex officio chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and a member of the Reserve Bank Organization Committee (RBOC). Until the Banking Act of 1935 was signed into law on Aug. 23, 1935 and became effective on Feb. 1, 1936, the incumbent treasury secretary had also been the ex officio Fed chair, whilst the de facto active head of the central bank was known as the governor of the Federal Reserve Board. The 1935 Act ended ex-officio membership of the treasury secretary, re-designating the governor as the chairman of the Board of Governors.

Since Alan Greenspan's term beginning in 1987, Fed chairs have largely been economists with a doctorate in economics, with the exception of Jerome Powell, who had been a lawyer and investment banker before the start of his term.^[18] Arthur Burns had been the first Fed chair to have a PhD in economics, although his two successors prior to Greenspan did not.^[19] Some economists have argued that a Fed chair ought to have a PhD in economics.^[18][20]

The following is a list of the past and present chairs of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System as well as governors of the Federal Reserve Board prior to the 1935 Act taking effect. A chair serves for a four-year term after appointment, but may be reappointed for several further four-year terms. Since the Federal Reserve was established in 1914, the following people have served as chair.^[a][21][22]

More information #, Portrait ...

#	Portrait	Name (birth–death)	Term of office[b]		Tenure length	Appointed by[c]	Previous experience	Education
			Start of term	End of term
-		William Gibbs McAdoo (1863–1941)	December 23, 1913	August 10, 1914	230 days	ex officio[d]	Lawyer Secretary of the Treasury	University of Tennessee (BA)
1		Charles Hamlin (1861–1938)	August 10, 1914	August 9, 1916	1 year, 365 days	Woodrow Wilson	Lawyer Assistant Secretary of the Treasury	Harvard University (BA, MA)
2		William Harding (1864–1930)	August 10, 1916	August 9, 1922	5 years, 364 days		Banker Member of the Federal Reserve Board	University of Alabama (BA, MA)
3		Daniel Crissinger (1860–1942)	May 1, 1923	September 15, 1927	4 years, 137 days	Warren G. Harding	Lawyer 14th Comptroller of the Currency	University of Akron (BS) University of Cincinnati (LLB)
4		Roy Young (1882–1960)	October 4, 1927	August 31, 1930	2 years, 331 days	Calvin Coolidge	Banker 3rd President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
5		Eugene Meyer (1875–1959)	September 16, 1930	May 10, 1933	2 years, 236 days	Herbert Hoover	Financier	Yale University (BA)
6		Eugene Black (1873–1934)	May 19, 1933	August 15, 1934	1 year, 88 days	Franklin D. Roosevelt	Lawyer President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta	University of Georgia (BA) Atlanta Law School (LLB)
7		Marriner Eccles (1890–1977)	November 15, 1934	January 31, 1948[e]	13 years, 77 days		Banker
8		Thomas McCabe (1893–1982)	April 15, 1948	March 31, 1951	2 years, 350 days	Harry S. Truman	Business executive	Swarthmore College (BA)
9		William McChesney Martin (1906–1998)	April 2, 1951	January 31, 1970	18 years, 304 days	Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson	Financier President of the New York Stock Exchange	Yale University (BA) Columbia University
10		Arthur Burns (1904–1987)	February 1, 1970	January 31, 1978[f]	7 years, 364 days	Richard Nixon Gerald Ford	Economist 3rd Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Counselor to the President	Columbia University (BA, MA, PhD)
11		William Miller (1925–2006)	March 8, 1978	August 6, 1979	1 year, 151 days	Jimmy Carter	Lawyer, investment banker, business executive	United States Coast Guard Academy (BS) University of California, Berkeley (LLB)
12		Paul Volcker (1927–2019)	August 6, 1979	August 11, 1987	8 years, 5 days	Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan	Economist President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York	Princeton University (BA) Harvard University (MA)
13		Alan Greenspan (born 1926)	August 11, 1987[g]	January 31, 2006	18 years, 173 days	Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Bush	Economist 10th Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers	New York University (BA, MA, PhD)
14		Ben Bernanke (born 1953)	February 1, 2006	January 31, 2014	7 years, 364 days	George W. Bush Barack Obama	Economist 23rd Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers	Harvard University (BA, MA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
15		Janet Yellen (born 1946)	February 3, 2014	February 3, 2018	4 years, 0 days	Barack Obama	Economist 19th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve 11th President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco 18th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers	Brown University (BA) Yale University (MA, PhD)
16		Jerome Powell (born 1953)	February 5, 2018[h]	Incumbent (term set to end on May 23, 2026)	8 years, 39 days	Donald Trump Joe Biden	Lawyer and investment banker Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions	Princeton University (BA) Georgetown University (JD)
Nomin.		Kevin Warsh	Nominee	Nominee		Donald Trump	Investment banker and financier	Stanford University (BA) Harvard University (JD)

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