The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on Friday announced its 2020 board of directors, effective Jan. 1, 2020. Lizanne Kindler, chief executive officer of Talbots and chair of Coldwater Creek, is the newest member of the Bank’s board of directors. Phillip L. Clay, Ph.D., professor emeritus of city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Christina Hull Paxson, Ph.D., president of Brown University, will continue to serve as chair and deputy chair, respectively.

John R. Ciulla, president and chief executive officer of Webster Financial Corporation, will again serve as the Boston Fed’s member of the Federal Reserve System’s Federal Advisory Council.

The Federal Reserve Act requires that each Reserve Bank have nine directors. Three Class A directors represent member banks in each district, three Class B directors represent the public, and three Class C directors represent the public 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 designates the chair and deputy chair from this group.

The members of the 2020 board of directors are:

• Phillip L. Clay, Ph.D., 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. He is professor emeritus of city planning at MIT. Clay is known for his work in U.S. housing policy and community-based organizational development. He serves on the board of trustees of the Kresge Foundation and is the former chair of the board of The Community Builders, Inc. Clay is also a member of the board of trustees of The Aga Khan University and a board member of the Nonprofit Finance Fund.
• Christina Hull Paxson, Ph.D., Deputy Chair and 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 the National Institute on Aging Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, and was 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.
• Chandler J. Howard, a Class A director, is the former president and chief executive officer of Liberty Bank, a Connecticut-based financial institution serving more than 200,000 consumers and businesses through 55 retail banking locations. Howard held this position from 2007 to 2019. He previously held various positions of increasing responsibility for People’s United Bank, Bank of America, and Fleet Bank, among others, in his more than 35-year career. Howard currently serves as vice chair of Middlesex Health board of directors, and as a member of the board of trustees for the Goodspeed Opera House. He has also served on a number of boards and councils, including for the Connecticut Bankers Association, the Connecticut Business Industry Association, the Greater Hartford Community Foundation, the American Bankers Association, and the FDIC Community Bankers Advisory Council. He is a former member of the Boston Fed’s Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council.
• Michael E. Tucker, Esq., a Class A director, is president and chief executive officer 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 a director of the Cooperative Central Bank of Massachusetts, a trustee of the Mass Bankers Charitable Foundation, an at-large member of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce board of directors, and a trustee of The Horace Smith Scholarship Fund.
• Bruce Van Saun, a Class A director, is chairman and chief executive officer of Citizens Financial Group, Inc. Van Saun joined Citizens Financial Group in 2013 and has more than 30 years of financial services experience. He joined Citizens after serving as Royal Bank of Scotland group finance director and as an executive director on the RBS Board from 2009 to 2013. Prior to joining RBS, he held a number of senior positions with Bank of New York and later Bank of New York Mellon. Van Saun has served on a number of boards in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including as a current director of Moody’s Corporation, and is a board member for the Bank Policy Institute, the Partnership for Rhode Island, and Jobs for Massachusetts.
• Roger W. Crandall, a Class B director, is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). Crandall has been with MassMutual since 1988, serving as chief investment officer from 2005 to 2010, co-chief operating officer from 2007 to 2010, and CEO since 2010. Crandall is actively involved in civil, academic, and economic development organizations, serving as a member of the Business Roundtable, the Smithsonian National Board, the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, the Wharton Leadership Advisory Board for The Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management, the University of Vermont Foundation Leadership Council, and the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center board of trustees.
• Lizanne Kindler, a Class B director, is chief executive officer of Talbots, an omni-channel retailer of women’s apparel, shoes, and accessories. She also serves as chair of Coldwater Creek. Kindler has extensive retail leadership experience and began her career at Ann Taylor Stores Corporation, where she spent 15 years in various leadership roles. She moved to Kohl’s and then Talbots, which has more than 8,700 employees and operates more than 500 retail stores across the United States. Kindler is an expert-in-residence for Babson College’s WIN (Women Innovating Now) Lab, an accelerator for women entrepreneurs. She is also a member of the advisory board of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University.
• Kimberly Sherman Stamler, a Class B director, is president of Related Beal, an integrated real estate firm focused on Boston and the surrounding region. Sherman Stamler joined Related Companies in 1999 and has experience in a variety of sectors within the real estate industry, including acquisitions, financing, development, leasing, marketing, operations, and sales across all asset classes. She sits on the boards of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston, A Better City, and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. She serves as co-chair of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Regional Real Estate Development Leadership Council, is a member of the Nontraditional Employment for Women Real Estate Developers Council and the Sam Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
• Kathleen “Kate” E. Walsh, a Class C director, is the president and chief executive officer of Boston Medical Center. Prior to her appointment at Boston Medical Center, Walsh served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She served previously as the chief operating officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and at Massachusetts General Hospital in positions including senior vice president of medical services and the MGH Cancer Center. She serves on several boards of directors, including the Pine Street Inn, the AAMC Council of Teaching Hospitals, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Dean’s Council of the Yale University of Medicine (where she is an alumni fellow), the Greater Boston YMCA Board of Overseers, and the Massachusetts Hospital Association.

Federal Advisory Council Representative

• John R. Ciulla, president and chief executive officer of Webster Financial Corporation and Webster Bank, and is a member of both boards of directors. He serves as the Federal Advisory Council representative for the Federal Reserve’s first 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.
  
  Ciulla joined Webster in 2004 as senior vice president for Middle Market Banking and has held several executive management positions with increasing responsibility, including chief credit risk officer from 2008 to 2010. He was promoted to executive vice president and head of Middle Market Banking in 2011, to head of Commercial Banking in 2014, and to president in 2015. Prior to joining Webster, Ciulla was with The Bank of New York, most recently as managing director. He practiced law in New York as an associate with McDermott Will & Emery and Hughes Hubbard & Reed. Ciulla serves on the board of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association is also a member of the board of the Business Council of Fairfield County.

Additional information about the structure of the Federal Reserve and Reserve Bank boards of directors may be found here.