Sheila Bair, the 19th Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), will wrap up her 5-year appointment in June 2011.  Martin Gruenberg, who's served as Vice Chairman of the FDIC Board of Directors since 8/22/05, is widely expected to succeed Ms. Bair.  Their career highlights are presented below.  For further details, go to:  [FDIC Web Site]. 

        Ms. Bair's Career Highlights.   Ms. Bair has an extensive background in banking and finance in a career that has taken her from Capitol Hill, to academia, to the highest levels of government.  She was the Dean's Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the School of Management at UMass-Amherst from 2002 until 2006, when she joined the FDIC.  Prior to that, in a career that began in 1981, Ms. Bair served as:

•     Asst Secretary for Financial Institutions for the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury (2001-2002);
•     SVP for Government Relations at the NYSE (1995-2000);
•     Commissioner and Acting Chairman at the CFTC (1991-1995);  and,
•     Research Director, Deputy Counsel and Counsel for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (1981-1988).

As the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Institutions, she was charged with helping to develop the Administration's positions on banking policy issues.  She worked closely with Treasury's own banking regulatory bureaus, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, as well as the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC.  Ms. Bair's teaching and research at UMass also dealt extensively with banking and related issues.

As FDIC Chairman ..., Ms. Bair has presided over a tumultuous period in the nation's financial sector, working to bolster public confidence and system stability.

In response to the financial crisis, she developed innovative and stabilizing programs that provided temporary liquidity guarantees to unfreeze credit markets and increased deposit insurance limits. In 2007, she was a singular - and prescient - advocate for systematic loan modifications to stem the coming tidal wave of foreclosures. Ms. Bair also led FDIC resolution strategies to sell failing banks to healthier institutions, while providing credit support of future losses from failed banks' troubled loans. That strategy saved the Deposit Insurance Fund $40 billion over losses it would have incurred if the FDIC had liquidated those banks.

More recently, the Dodd-Frank Reform Act significantly expanded the FDIC's authority - extending the FDIC's resolution process to large, systemically-important financial institutions, effectively attacking the doctrine of too-big-to-fail. The FDIC also was given joint authority to order the restructuring of an entity that cannot demonstrate, through a continually-monitored resolution plan, that it can be unwound.

Extracurricular Activities.   Ms. Bair has served as a member of several professional and nonprofit organizations including:  Insurance Marketplace Standards Association;  Women in Housing and Finance;  Center for Responsible Lending;  NASD Ahead-of-the-Curve Advisory Committee;  Massachusetts Savings Makes Cents;  American Bar Association;  Exchequer Club;  Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Education.  Ms. Bair received a BA from Kansas University, and a JD from Kansas U School of Law.

        Mr. Gruenberg's Career Highlights.   Shortly after being sworn in as Vice Chairman of the FDIC Board of Directors - from 11/15/05 to 6/26/06 - Martin Gruenberg served as Acting Chairman following the resignation of Chairman Donald Powell.  On 11/2/07, he was named Chairman of the Executive Council and President of the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI).  Prior to joining the FDIC Board, Mr. Gruenberg had amassed broad congressional experience in the financial services and regulatory areas, having served as:

    Senior Counsel to Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) - during that time he was on the staff of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (1993 -2005);  he also advised Sen. Sarbanes on issues of domestic and international financial regulation, monetary policy and trade.

    Staff Director of the Banking Committee's Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy (1987 - 1992) - during this time, he played an active role on such legislation as the Financial Institution Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), the FDIC Improvement Act of 1991, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
 

Mr. Gruenberg holds a J.D. from Case Western Reserve Law School and an A.B. from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.