“It seems like he is sort of a quintessentially connected person, and that’s really, really great for the Dallas Fed,” he said. “This is someone who’s connected to Washington, he’s connected to academia, and he’s connected to Wall Street.”
The Dallas Fed Board said it had cast a wide net to find someone who “appreciates the impact decisions made by the Federal Reserve have on people from all walks of life.”
‘Broad Pool’
The search committee “considered a broad pool of excellent candidates,” Dallas Fed board chairman Renu Khator said in the press release.
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee has 12 voting seats. Eight of those are reserved for the bank’s governors and the president of the New York Fed. The presidents of the other 11 regional banks rotate through four remaining spots.
The FOMC will probably raise rates at its next gathering, on Sept. 16-17, according to 77 percent of economists in a Bloomberg survey conducted Aug. 7-12.
Criteria for the new president included recognized stature in economics and finance or banking, with a Ph.D. preferred, according to a job description provided by the Dallas Fed. A commitment to the Dallas Fed district, which covers Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Louisiana, also ranked among the desired qualities.
Kansas Roots
Kaplan grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, and received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard.
He is the author of several books on leadership and also serves on the boards of State Street Corp. and Harvard Management Co. He is a trustee of the Ford Foundation, and chairman and co-founder of Indaba Capital Management LP. Kaplan chairs the investment advisory committee at Google Inc. The Dallas Fed said in its statement that he would step down from these positions before taking his now post.