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President Joe Biden on Friday nominated economist and World Bank official Adriana Kugler to join the Federal Reserve’s powerful Board of Governors and Philip Jefferson to be the central bank’s vice chair.
If confirmed, Kugler, a Colombian-American, would be the first Latino to serve on the Fed board, marking the latest effort by Biden to improve the central bank’s diversity.
Biden, who has been under pressure from New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to name a Latino to the Fed, praised Kugler in a statement as a “highly qualified and respected economist with deep expertise in labor markets.”
Menendez celebrated the groundbreaking nomination at the Fed, saying in a statement: “Simply put, we are witnessing history unfold in real time.”
“We are ushering in a new chapter at the Federal Reserve, which for 109 years has never had Latinos or Latinas in the upper echelons of its leadership,” Menendez said. “We are finally giving Latinos, all 62 million of us who call this country home, a seat at the table where the most consequential decisions on monetary policy are made.”
Last year, Kugler was confirmed with bipartisan support to serve as the US executive director to the World Bank. Her name has been mentioned in media reports as a candidate to fill the open seat at the Fed created when Lael Brainard left the Fed in February to serve as the director of the White House’s National Economic Council.
