The Federal Reserve Board of Governors will have a
Gov. Lisa Cook, whose term was set to expire at the end of January 2024, was also sworn into a new, 14-year term on the board, running through 2037. Gov. Philip Jefferson, meanwhile, was sworn in as the
President Joe Biden nominated Kugler and Jefferson to their new positions, along with renominating Cook, on May 23. All three were approved by the Senate Banking Committee and confirmed by a vote of the full Senate last week. Kugler and Cook cleared the Senate on a largely party line vote, with Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, being the only Republicans to vote in their favor. Jefferson enjoyed board bipartisan support, garnering 88 out of 98 votes cast on the floor.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell administered the oath of office to all three governors on Wednesday morning.
Kugler is on leave from Georgetown, where she is a professor of economics and public policy and serves as vice provost for faculty.
In 2021, Biden appointed Kugler U.S. executive director of the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Before that she was the chief economist in the Labor Department during the Obama administration from 2011 to 2013, and she held research positions at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at Stanford University.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in economics and political science from McGill University and a doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kugler, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia, is now the first Fed governor with
Cook, who similarly made history last year as the first Black woman to join the Fed Board of Governors, has added another distinction to her resume: the first Black woman confirmed to a full 14-year term.
Before joining the Fed, Cook worked as a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. Before that she was a faculty member at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Her prior government experience includes work done on the Council of Economic Advisors during the Obama administration and a research position at the Treasury Department's Office of International Affairs.
Since joining the Fed last year, Jefferson has taken on the role of chair of the Fed's internal Committee on Board Affairs and has served as oversight governor for the office of the Fed's chief operating officer.
Before being confirmed to the board last year, Jefferson was vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson College, where he also taught economics. Before that, he was a staff researcher for the Board of Governors and served on the advisory board for the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Since Brainard's departure to lead the National Economic Council, the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee — which consists of governors in Washington and a rotating group of regional reserve bank presidents — has been short one voting member for the past four meetings.
Next week's FOMC meeting, which runs from Tuesday morning to Wednesday afternoon, is one of three remaining gatherings for the committee, with the final two convening on Oct. 31 and Dec. 12, respectively.
After multiple months of lower inflation readings and loosening labor market conditions, market participants broadly expect the FOMC to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25% to 5.5% next week. Opinions vary more widely about what the committee will do at subsequent meetings, with one final hike, a continued hold and potential rate cut all seen as being in play.
