(Reuters) – The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on Wednesday named University of Michigan provost Susan Collins as its next chief, making her the first Black woman to lead a regional Fed bank.
Collins will start her job on July 1, the Boston Fed said in a statement. She would succeed longtime president Eric Rosengren, who left amid an ethics scandal over his and another Fed bank president’s personal trading during the pandemic.
Collins, who is also a professor of public policy and economics, is a well-known figure to monetary policymakers, frequently moderating at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium.
Her academic work includes papers on emerging markets, exchange rates and trade.
Her appointment helps bring more diversity to U.S. central policymakers, long criticized for being too white and too male
Rosengren and Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan resigned last fall after disclosures they conducted active trading – Rosengren in real estate securities and Kaplan in stocks – as the Fed undertook an aggressive rescue effort.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has since overhauled Fed ethics rules to bar most active trading by senior Fed officials, and asked the central bank’s inspector general to launch an investigation into the trading, a probe that is currently ongoing.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Andrea Ricci)