By Jonnelle Marte
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has kicked off its search for a new president to replace Eric Rosengren, the bank's previous top executive who left last month, it said on Tuesday.
The bank's search is being led by Christina Paxson, the chair of its board and president of Brown University, it said in a statement, and it has hired the executive search firm Spencer Stuart to assist it in recruiting potential candidates.
Rosengren retired at the end of last month citing health reasons, but the move came as he and former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan faced questions over investment trades they made last year while the Fed took action to stabilize markets and the economy.
Both Kaplan and Rosengren said their trades were in line with the Fed's ethics guidelines and agreed to divest their stock holdings. Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month called for a review of the central bank's ethics guidelines and vowed to improve them. He also said there will be a review of the trading that was done to make sure it was in compliance with existing rules and laws.
There is no strict deadline set for the search process, the Boston Fed said in a statement, adding that the priority is to find the "right leader."
Speaking in an accompanying video about the skills and values the next Boston Fed president should have, Paxson said "integrity" is important.
"You are serving the public good. You have to do that with the highest level of integrity," Paxson said. She also cited, among other attributes, commitment to transparency, and diversity, equity and inclusion in both the successful candidate's approach to policymaking and running the Boston Fed.
The regional Fed bank boards that will run the searches and make the new hires for the Boston Fed and Dallas Fed now have far more women and minorities than they did when Rosengren and Kaplan were hired. Only non-banker directors - six of the nine board members at each bank - may take part in the process.
Spencer Stuart has assisted with the hiring of half of current Fed presidents, including that of New York Fed's John Williams in 2018, as well as the system's first Black regional Fed president, Atlanta Fed's Raphael Bostic, in 2017 and its only other non-white president, Minneapolis Fed's Neel Kashkari. The firm was also involved in the search for Cleveland Fed's Loretta Mester in 2013 and Chicago Fed's Charles Evans in 2007.