Boston Fed Announces 2017 Board of Directors
Dr. Gary Gottlieb of Partners In Health and Phillip Clay, Ph.D. designated chair and deputy chair; Wayfair’s Niraj Shah and Boston Medical Center’s Kathleen Walsh join Bank’s board
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston today announced its 2017 Board of Directors, effective Jan. 1, 2017. New members joining the board of directors are Niraj Shah, chief executive officer, co-chair, and co-founder of Wayfair, and Kathleen Walsh, president and chief executive officer of Boston Medical Center.
The Federal Reserve Act requires that each Reserve Bank have nine directors. Three Class A Directors represent member banks in the district; three Class B Directors, and three Class C Directors are selected with due consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor, and consumers. Member banks elect Class A and Class B Directors. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. appoints Class C Directors and from this group designates the Chair and Deputy Chair.
The members of the 2017 Board of Directors are:
- Gary L. Gottlieb, M.D., Chair and Class C Director, is chief executive officer of Partners In Health, a global health organization providing health care in severely resource constrained environments in ten countries. Dr. Gottlieb is also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. From 2010 until February 2015, Gottlieb served as president and chief executive officer of Partners HealthCare, the parent organization of Brigham and Women's and Massachusetts General Hospitals. Prior to that he served as president of Brigham and Women's Hospital, president of North Shore Medical Center, and as chairman of Partners Psychiatry and Mental Health System. As a leader in the Boston area community, Dr. Gottlieb served as chairman of the Private Industry Council, the city's workforce investment board, from 2005 to 2015.
- Phillip L. Clay, Ph.D., Deputy Chair and Class C Director, served as chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2001 to 2011 and held other leadership positions there, including head of the department of urban studies and planning. Clay is known for his work in U.S. housing policy and community-based organizational development. He is the former chair of the board of The Community Builders, Inc., and serves on the board of trustees of the Kresge Foundation. Clay is also a member of the board of trustees of The Aga Khan University.
- Joseph L. Hooley, a Class A Director, is chairman and chief executive officer of State Street Corporation. Since joining State Street in 1986, Hooley has held a number of diverse leadership positions with increasing responsibility—both within State Street and externally. He was appointed vice chairman of State Street in 2006 and president and chief operating officer in 2008, and assumed his current role in 2010. Hooley serves on the board of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, the President's Council of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP). He also is a trustee of the board of Boston College and a member of the Financial Services Forum in Washington. Hooley is also the former Federal Reserve Bank of Boston representative to the Federal Advisory Council.
- Peter Judkins, a Class A Director, is president and chief executive officer of Franklin Savings Bank, a mutual savings bank based in Farmington, Maine with branches in seven Maine towns. Prior to joining Franklin Savings Bank in 1999, Judkins held various sales and sales management positions with American Express and Citicorp. Judkins is chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's audit committee and a former member of the Federal Reserve System's Thrift Institution Advisory Council. He currently serves on the board of Franklin Community Health Network and is a member of the administrative committee for the Community Bankers Council of the American Bankers Association.
- Michael E. Tucker, Esq., a Class A Director, is president, chief executive officer, and director of Greenfield Cooperative Bank and its parent company, Greenfield Bancorp MHC, a position he has held since 2003. A lawyer by training, Tucker began his career at the Springfield Institution for Savings, where he later served as senior vice president and general counsel. Tucker also was senior vice president and senior operating officer at Easthampton Savings Bank. He has held a number of positions on committees of the board of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, including state chairman from 2013 to 2014. He is currently an at-large member of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce board of directors and a trustee of the Horace Smith Fund Scholarship Fund.
- Roger S. Berkowitz, a Class B Director, is president and chief executive officer of Legal Sea Foods, a seafood company with over thirty restaurant locations, a wholesale business, and a mail order division. Berkowitz is a member of the board of directors for the Regional Selection Panel for the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. He was appointed to the Special Commission on Seafood Marketing by the Governor of Massachusetts, is a member of the Massachusetts Workforce Training Fund Advisory Board, and a member and past president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. He also serves on the board of directors for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and serves on the Leadership Council at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, among other non-profit boards. Berkowitz is a past member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's New England Advisory Council.
- Niraj Shah, a Class B Director, is chief executive officer, co-chairman and co-founder of Wayfair, a leading home goods online retailer with 2015 sales of $2.25 billion. Wayfair operates in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom through its five brands and has over 3,800 employees. Before Wayfair, Shah was chief executive officer and co-founder of Simplify Mobile and Spinners, and was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Greylock Partners. He has been included in Fortune Magazine's "40 Under 40," and has won the Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award. Shah is also on the board of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Massachusetts Competitive Partnership (MACP), and the Entrepreneurship @ Cornell Advisory Council. He holds a bachelor's of science degree in engineering from Cornell University.
- Kathleen "Kate" E. Walsh, a Class B Director, is the president and chief executive officer of Boston Medical Center. Prior to her appointment at Boston Medical Center in 2010, Walsh was the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Brigham and Women's Hospital for five years. She served previously as the chief operating officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. She serves on several boards of directors, including the Pine Street Inn, the Council of Teaching Hospitals, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, and is the chair-elect of the Massachusetts Hospital Association. Walsh received her bachelor's of arts degree and a master's degree in public health from Yale University.
- Christina Hull Paxson, Ph.D., a Class C Director, is president of Brown University and Professor of Economics and Public Policy. Prior to her appointment as president in 2012, she was dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs and the Hughes Rogers Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. While at Princeton, Paxson also served as chair of the Department of Economics, was the founding director of a National Institute on Aging Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, and a founder of the Center for Health and Wellbeing. She served as vice president of the American Economic Association in 2012, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Federal Advisory Council Representative
- Bruce Van Saun, chairman and chief executive officer of Citizens Financial Group, Inc. serves as the Federal Advisory Council (FAC) representative for the First Federal Reserve District. The FAC, which consists of one banker from each of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts, meets quarterly to discuss business and financial conditions with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.
Van Saun joined Citizens Financial Group in 2013 and has more than 30 years of financial services experience. He joined Citizens after serving as RBS Group finance director and as an executive director on the RBS Board from 2009 to 2013. From 1997 to 2008, Van Saun held a number of senior positions with Bank of New York and later Bank of New York Mellon. Earlier in his career, he held senior positions with Deutsche Bank, Wasserstein Perella Group, and Kidder Peabody & Co. He is currently a director of Moody's Corporation (New York) and a member of The Clearing House Supervisory Board. He is also a board member of the National Constitution Center and of Jobs for Massachusetts, and is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.
Additional information about the structure of the Federal Reserve and Reserve Bank boards of directors may be found here.