First African-American Will Head Regional Federal Reserve Bank

Raphael Bostic

ATLANTA
Raphael Bostic will make history on June 5 when he becomes the first African-American to serve as the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Bostic is a 1987 Harvard University grad, and a New Jersey native who earned his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1995. He  will succeed Dennis Lockhart who retired on Feb. 28. He teaches public policy at the University of Southern California and served as the assistant secretary for Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2012.

“We are very pleased that Raphael will join the Atlanta Fed as its president and chief executive officer,” Thomas Fanning, chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said in a recent statement.

Bostic, 50, will be the fourth African-American to serve on the Federal Reserve’s seven member board, which helps set the nation’s monetary policy, such as raising or lowering interest rates. He will also be the first African-American to head one of the Federal Reserve Bank’s 12 regional banks.

“In my role as president of the Atlanta Reserve Bank, I also look forward to confronting the challenges the Federal Reserve faces in today’s increasingly global and rapidly changing economy,” Bostic said in a statement.