President Obama nominated Stanley Fischer, the former governor of the Bank of Israel, to be the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The Friday nomination comes the same week that the Senate confirmed Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve’s chairwoman, the third Jewish person to hold the post in succession, following Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan.
“Stanley Fischer brings decades of leadership and expertise from various roles, including serving at the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of Israel,” Obama said of Fischer, who helmed the Bank of Israel from 2005 until last year. “He is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading and most experienced economic policy minds and I’m grateful he has agreed to take on this new role and I am confident that he and Janet Yellen will make a great team.”
Fischer, 70 and born in Zambia, is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. He previously held senior positions at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.