07.18.2018

Despite Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell's stated commitment to improving diversity among the Federal Reserve's leadership, recent selections of Federal Reserve Bank presidents have continued to result in the elevation of white, male Fed insiders. Each time that a vacancy emerges at a Reserve Bank, the Fed Up coalition advocates for a transparent and publicly inclusive process that includes the consideration of candidates from diverse backgrounds. Richmond Fed Chair Margaret Lewis, who oversaw the process for choosing Thomas Barkin as Richmond Fed president, never reached out to our coalition for candidates, yet she reportedly told the Fed's Board of Governors that her efforts to find a diverse pool had "minimal direct results." After the New York Fed board's selection of John Williams as its next president sparked a "backlash," a source close to the process told Politico that the board could not identify qualified, diverse candidates who would take the job, even though Fed Up provided the board with a list months earlier. In June, the Fed Up coalition met with members of the San Francisco Fed search committee to advise their search for the next San Francisco Fed president. Here are five qualified and diverse candidates we provided to them.

Candidates for San Francisco Fed President

1. Marie Mora has been serving as Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). She is also a Board of Governors’ appointee on the Board of Directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas San Antonio Branch; Director and Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded American Economic Association’s Mentoring Program; a former member of the Data Users Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and a founding member and former President of the American Society of Hispanic Economists. Dr. Mora – a labor economist – has been invited to share her research expertise on Hispanic/Latino labor market outcomes at institutions and agencies across the country, including the White House, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Along with numerous journal articles and book chapters, her publications include the recently released Population, Migration, and Socioeconomic Outcomes among Island and Mainland Puerto Ricans: La Crisis Boricua, and three co-edited volumes. Dr. Mora’s recent national honors include the 2017 Inspiring Leaders in STEM Award (INSIGHT into Diversity); the 2016 Outstanding Support for Hispanic Issues in Higher Education Award (American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education); the 2015 Cesar Estrada Chavez Award (American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity); and the 2015 Distinguished Alumnus award (Department of Economics, University of New Mexico). She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University, and B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics from the University of New Mexico.

2. William Spriggs serves as Chief Economist to the AFL-CIO, and is a professor in, and former Chair of, the Department of Economics at Howard University. Bill assumed these roles in August 2012 after leaving the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. Bill was appointed by President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, in 2009 to serve as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor, taking a leave of absence from Howard University to do so. At the time of his appointment, he also served as chairman for the Healthcare Trust for UAW Retirees of the Ford Motor Company and as chairman of the UAW Retirees of the Dana Corporation Health and Welfare Trust; and on the joint National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Public Administration's Committee on the Fiscal Future for the United States; and, as Senior Fellow of the Community Service Society of New York. Bill's previous work experience includes roles leading economic policy development and research at the Economic Policy Institute, the National Urban League, positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and the independent federal National Commission for Employment Policy. While working on his PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Bill began his labor career as co-president of the American Federation of Teachers, Local 3220 in Madison, Wisconsin.

3. Luis Antonio Ubiñas has served as the President of the Board of Trustees of the Pan American Development Foundation since May 2015. Mr. Ubiñas served as the President of Ford Foundation since January 2008 until September 2013. Mr. Ubiñas led McKinsey's Media Practice on the West Coast of the United States, advising Fortune 100 media, telecommunications and technology companies on major strategic and operating challenges for 18 years. While at McKinsey, Mr. Ubiñas led research on the impact of new technologies on business and society, worked with traditional media companies responding to the effects of new media and with emerging technology companies on the introduction of new media services. He has a distinguished record of leadership in the nonprofit sector, devoting much of his personal time and energy to working with nonprofits to accomplish their missions. He has advised senior management and served on the boards of Leadership Education and Development (LEAD), a national organization providing educational opportunities to low-income African-American and Latino high school students and the Bay Area United Way. He has been an Independent Director of Electronic Arts Inc. since November 9, 2010 and has been its Lead Director since August 27, 2015. He has been Independent Director of Commerce Technologies Inc. since July 22, 2016. He serves as a Director of The Steppingstone Foundation. He served as a Director at Valassis Communications Inc. from November 26, 2012 to February 2014. Mr. Ubiñas served as Director of McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 18 years. He serves on several boards and advisory committees, including the World Bank Advisory Council of Global Foundation Leaders and the UN Permanent Advisory Memorial Committee. Mr. Ubiñas has been a Member of Advisory Committee at Export-Import Bank of the United States since December 2013. He has been nominated by President on the U.S. Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation. Mr. Ubiñas earned an AB degree (magna cum laude in Government) at Harvard College where, among other honors, he was named a Harry S. Truman Scholar and a John Winthrop Scholar. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As an undergraduate, he also studied at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and earned a certificate in Latin American Studies from Harvard. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.

4. Manuel Pastor is Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He currently directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) at USC and USC's Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC. Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. Pastor's recent book, Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas, co-authored with Chris Benner (UC Press 2015), argues how inequality stunts economic growth and how bringing together equity and growth requires concerted local action. His previous volumes include: Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions, co-authored with Chris Benner (Routledge 2012), advances the idea that growth and equity can and should be linked, offering a new path for a U.S. economy seeking to recover from economic crisis and distributional distress; Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton 2010; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh),  documents the gap between progress in racial attitudes and racial realities and offers a new set of strategies for both talking about race and achieving racial equity. Pastor was the founding director of the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has received fellowships from the Danforth, Guggenheim, and Kellogg foundations, and grants from the Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the W.T. Grant Foundation, The California Endowment, the California Air Resources Board, and many others. 

5. Anat Admati is a Stanford University economist with expertise in financial economics, including financial markets, banking, corporate finance, and corporate governance. She has been deeply immersed in policy issues, particularly around banking, for more than ten years, engaging experts from an array of perspectives and ideological backgrounds. She has a thorough knowledge of the power of markets to advance the economy, but also their limitations, and the great opportunity of policymakers and central bankers to shape the economy and to enable markets to better function and reduce distortions. The author of several books, including “The Banker’s New Clothes,” Admati has a great appreciation of the critical importance of a healthy and stable banking system to the economy.