Susan M. Collins. Photo courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Susan M. Collins, an economist and provost from the University of Michigan, has been named the next president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Collins will begin her new role on July 1, the Boston Fed said in a statement today. She is the first African-American woman to head the Boston Fed and she will become a 2022 voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee once she is in office.
“After an intensive search, we are thrilled to appoint this exceptionally well-qualified person to be the Bank’s president and a key leader in the Federal Reserve System,” Dr. Christina Paxson, president of Brown University and chair of the Boston Fed’s board of directors, said in the statement.
Paxson led the presidential search committee.
The Boston Fed began searching for a new president and CEO after Eric Rosengren resigned in September, citing a worsening, longstanding kidney condition. Rosengren had been slated to retire in June 2022 when he reached age 65, the mandatory retirement age for federal reserve bank presidents. His retirement also came after news reports showed that Rosengren and then-Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan had engaged in stock trading during 2020 that raised ethics questions.
Collins will remain at the University of Michigan until the end of the academic year. She has been provost and executive vice president for academic affairs since 2020, overseeing academic programming and budget planning, the statement said. Collins, who has been at the University of Michigan since 2007, is also the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Public Policy and a professor of economics.
Collins studied and spent the first years of her career in Greater Boston. She graduated from Harvard University with an economics degree and received a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She began her career as an assistant and associate professor at Harvard.
“It is an honor and an inspiration to serve as the Boston Fed’s next president,” Collins said. “Throughout my career, I have been driven by a commitment to leveraging research, education, and public service to improve lives. I look forward to helping the Bank and System pursue the Fed’s dual mandate from Congress – achieving price stability and maximum employment.”
Collins spent nine years on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and is currently a member of the boards of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The Boston Fed said she will step down from these positions before taking office.
The Boston Fed’s interim president, Kenneth Montgomery, will remain in that role until Collins takes office. He will then continue as first vice president and chief operating officer, as well as leader of the Federal Reserve System’s FedNow Service, which will support instant payments for businesses and individuals when it launches in 2023.
“We are very pleased that Dr. Collins will be leading our organization,” Montgomery said in the statement. “She is a leader with exceptional background and perspective. She also has a deep understanding of the Federal Reserve System’s inner workings, having served for nine years as a director at the Chicago Reserve Bank. I am excited to work with Susan here in Boston, and I know she will help us build on our Bank’s distinctive contributions.”
Collins added that she was inspired by the important and innovative work going on at the Boston Fed.
“I am delighted with the opportunity to lead such a dynamic organization, engage with its talented staff, and work with its constituents – to understand their economic challenges and help explain the work of the Fed in the economy,” Collins said. “It will also be a pleasure to return to Greater Boston and New England.”
