CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland announced today that Loretta J. Mester has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 1, 2014.
Sandra Pianalto will retire as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Fed on May 31, 2014. Ms. Pianalto has led the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland since 2003 and announced in August 2013 that she would retire.
As President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Mester will participate on the Federal Open Market Committee in the formulation of U.S. monetary policy, and will oversee 950 employees in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh who conduct economic research, supervise financial institutions, and provide payment services to financial institutions and the U.S. government.
Mester, 55, currently serves as Executive Vice President and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. In this role, she serves as the Bank’s chief policy advisor and attends the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Mester oversees a staff of economists and analysts who conduct research on a variety of topics, as well as a staff of professionals in the Bank’s financial statistics department and the Payments Card Center. She joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in 1985 as an economist and has advanced to positions of increasing responsibility during her 28 years with the Federal Reserve.
Mester graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and economics from Barnard College of Columbia University. She earned a master of arts and a doctorate in philosophy in economics from Princeton University, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Mester is an adjunct professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. She also is a founding member and director of the Financial Intermediation Research Society; a member of the advisory board of the Financial Intermediation Network of European Studies (FINEST); and a practitioner director of the Financial Management Association International (FMA). In addition, Mester is co-editor of the Journal of Financial Services Research and the International Journal of Central Banking, and is an associate editor of several other professional journals.
“The board is unanimous in its decision that Loretta is the right person to provide sound leadership to build on the Cleveland Fed’s core strengths and successfully lead the Bank into the future,” said Richard K. Smucker, Chairman of the Cleveland Fed’s Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of The J.M. Smucker Company.
“Loretta is a distinguished and widely respected economist and leader whose vast experience and deep knowledge of the Federal Reserve System and the challenges facing the FOMC make her the ideal candidate to head the Cleveland Fed,” said Christopher M. Connor, Deputy Chairman of the Bank’s Board of Directors and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Sherwin-Williams Company, who led the search committee. “We were fortunate to have many outstanding candidates who were part of our search process and, in the end, Loretta stood out from the rest due to her deep expertise and broad understanding of economics, finance, financial intermediation, and banking issues.”
“I am honored to have been chosen to lead the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The Cleveland Fed is a premier Bank in the Federal Reserve System thanks to the extraordinary leadership of President Pianalto, the exceptional talent of its employees, and its longstanding history of excellent public service to the Fourth Federal Reserve District and to the nation,” said Mester. “The Cleveland Fed is an institution with great strengths including its outstanding research on inflation measurement and forecasting, its contributions to financial stability analysis, and its innovative work in U.S. Treasury revenue collections. I am delighted that I will be working with the Cleveland Fed’s staff to build on the Bank’s many achievements in fulfillment of the Federal Reserve System’s important mission. I also look forward to developing relationships with the communities, businesses, and banks in the Fourth District. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to serve the public.”
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is one of the twelve regional Reserve Banks in the Federal Reserve System, and serves the Fourth District, which comprises Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. As part of the U.S. central bank, the Cleveland Fed participates in the formulation of national monetary policy, supervises banking organizations, provides payment and other services to financial institutions and the U.S. Treasury, and performs many activities that support Federal Reserve operations System-wide. In addition, the Bank supports the well-being of communities across the Fourth District through a wide array of research, outreach, and educational activities. For more information, go to www.clevelandfed.org.
President-elect Mester’s official bio can be found here.