Jerome Powell

Jerome Powell
Born	Jerome Hayden Powell 4 2, 1953
Birthplace	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Central banker, lawyer, investment banker
Title	Chair of the Federal Reserve
Known for	16th Chair of the Federal Reserve
Education	Georgetown University (JD)
Children	3
Website	[https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/board/powell.htm Official site]

Jerome Hayden Powell (born February 4, 1953), commonly known as Jay Powell, is an American central banker, lawyer, and former investment banker who has served as the 16th Chair of the Federal Reserve since February 5, 2018. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Powell built a career that spanned the legal profession, investment banking, private equity, and public service before ascending to the most consequential economic policy position in the United States. He was first nominated to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by President Barack Obama in 2012, elevated to the chairmanship by President Donald Trump in 2018, and renominated for a second term as chair by President Joe Biden in 2021. His tenure at the helm of the Federal Reserve has encompassed some of the most turbulent economic episodes in modern American history, including the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, a historic surge in inflation from 2021 to 2023, and sustained political pressure from the White House over monetary policy. In February 2026, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell as Fed chair, with Powell's term set to end in May 2026.

Early Life

Jerome Hayden Powell was born on February 4, 1953, in Washington, D.C. He grew up in the nation's capital, surrounded by the institutions of American government and policy. Details about his parents and childhood remain relatively private, though his upbringing in Washington placed him in proximity to the political and policy-making environment that would define much of his professional life.

Powell attended Princeton University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He subsequently enrolled at the Georgetown University Law Center, from which he obtained his Juris Doctor (JD). His legal education at Georgetown provided the foundation for his early career in law and later facilitated his transition into the financial sector and government service.

Education

Powell holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center. His dual background in the liberal arts and law equipped him for a career that would move fluidly between the private sector and government. Princeton, one of the leading universities in the United States, provided a broad intellectual grounding, while Georgetown's law program—located in Washington, D.C.—offered training closely connected to the world of government and regulatory policy.

Career

Early Legal and Financial Career

After completing his law degree at Georgetown, Powell worked as an attorney for approximately five years before transitioning to the financial sector in the mid-1980s. He moved into investment banking, a career shift that would prove lucrative and formative. In September 1985, he married Elissa Leonard, an event reported in The New York Times.

Powell's career in investment banking included work at prominent financial institutions. In February 1995, The New York Times reported that Powell joined Dillon, Read & Co., a venerable Wall Street investment bank. His trajectory in the financial industry continued upward, and in 1997 he became a partner at the Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest and most prominent private equity firms. Powell remained at Carlyle until 2005, when he departed to establish Severn Capital Partners, a boutique private equity firm he founded and led.

At the time of his nomination by President Trump to lead the Federal Reserve in November 2017, Powell's accumulated wealth drew media attention. The Washington Post reported that Powell would be the wealthiest Fed chair since the 1940s, reflecting his decades of success in investment banking and private equity.

Treasury Department Service Under George H. W. Bush

Powell's first foray into public service came in 1990, when he joined the United States Department of the Treasury under President George H. W. Bush. He initially served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions, succeeding David W. Mullins Jr. in the role. In this capacity, Powell oversaw policy matters related to the nation's banking and financial services industry.

On April 7, 1992, Powell was elevated to the position of Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, succeeding Robert R. Glauber. The New York Times noted in April 1992 that Powell's new duties at the Treasury were "familiar" territory for the nominee, reflecting his deep experience in financial matters. As Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Powell was responsible for policy areas including financial institutions regulation, the government securities market, and fiscal policy coordination. He served in this role until the end of the Bush administration on January 20, 1993, when he was succeeded by Frank N. Newman.

Bipartisan Policy Center

After leaving the Carlyle Group and founding Severn Capital Partners, Powell maintained a connection to policy circles in Washington. From 2010 to 2012, he served as a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank focused on finding common ground between Democrats and Republicans on major policy issues. This affiliation underscored Powell's reputation as a figure comfortable working across partisan lines—a quality that would later define his approach at the Federal Reserve.

Federal Reserve Board of Governors

In late December 2011, President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Powell—along with Harvard economics professor Jeremy Stein—to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Powell's nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate, and he took his seat on the Board of Governors on May 25, 2012, succeeding Frederic Mishkin.

As a governor, Powell developed a reputation as a consensus-builder and pragmatic policymaker. He addressed issues ranging from financial regulation to monetary policy. In a March 2013 speech, Powell discussed the challenges of ending the "too big to fail" problem in the banking sector, noting that the process would take years to accomplish. In April 2017, CNN Money reported on Powell's evolving views regarding bank supervision, noting his stance on financial regulation during a period of debate over the future of post-crisis reforms.

In October 2017, shortly before his nomination to the chairmanship, Powell delivered a speech on the Federal Reserve's approach to monetary policy and the economy, outlining his views on the trajectory of interest rates and economic growth.

Nomination and Confirmation as Fed Chair

On November 2, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Powell to serve as the 16th Chair of the Federal Reserve, succeeding Janet Yellen. Forbes reported on the selection, noting that Powell was chosen from a field of candidates that included current and former Fed officials as well as academic economists. Bloomberg News provided additional background on Powell's qualifications and the implications of his selection, describing key elements of his career and policy positions that investors and policymakers would need to understand.

The United States Senate confirmed Powell as Fed Chair on January 23, 2018, in a bipartisan vote that reflected broad support for his nomination. Powell was sworn in on February 5, 2018, succeeding Yellen. Powell was the first Fed chair in several decades who did not hold a doctoral degree in economics, a fact that drew both praise—for bringing a practical, market-oriented perspective—and criticism from those who preferred an academic economist in the role.

Tenure as Chair

Powell's chairmanship has been defined by extraordinary economic events and increasing political tensions surrounding the Federal Reserve's independence. Upon taking office in 2018, Powell continued the gradual normalization of monetary policy that had begun under Yellen, overseeing a series of interest rate increases. However, the economic landscape shifted dramatically with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, which necessitated an aggressive monetary policy response.

Under Powell's leadership, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near zero and implemented large-scale asset purchases and emergency lending facilities to stabilize financial markets and support the economy through the pandemic-induced recession. These actions, while credited with preventing a deeper economic downturn, contributed to a significant expansion of the Fed's balance sheet—a subject that has remained a point of discussion and debate.

The pandemic-era monetary stimulus was followed by a surge in inflation beginning in 2021, which reached levels not seen in the United States in four decades. Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee responded with an aggressive cycle of interest rate increases starting in 2022, raising the federal funds rate to its highest level in over two decades. The Fed's approach aimed to bring inflation back toward the central bank's 2 percent target without precipitating a severe recession—a so-called "soft landing" for the economy.

Powell's tenure also saw increasing political pressure from the White House regarding monetary policy decisions. President Trump publicly criticized Powell's interest rate decisions on multiple occasions. In late January 2026, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady, a decision that NBC News described as a "defiant" stance by Powell in the face of White House pressure to lower borrowing costs. The New York Times reported that the political drama between Trump and Powell overshadowed the substance of the Fed's rate decision, noting that Powell had spent much of the preceding month navigating an intensely fraught political environment.

In January 2026, Powell issued a public statement from the Federal Reserve, declaring: "I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above" the law. The statement came amid reports of a Department of Justice probe into the Fed chair. In February 2026, CNBC reported that President Trump said the criminal investigation into Powell should continue "to the end."

The Wall Street Journal reported that Powell declined on multiple occasions—at least four times since the summer of 2025—to say whether he would remain on the Federal Reserve Board after his term as chair expires, leaving open questions about his future role.

End of Chairmanship

In late January 2026, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, to succeed Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve. CNN reported that the announcement capped an extensive search that had begun in September 2025 and was led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The BBC reported that Powell's term as chairman would end in May 2026. Powell's potential continued service on the Board of Governors after leaving the chairmanship remained an open question as of early 2026.

Personal Life

Jerome Powell married Elissa Leonard on September 14, 1985, as reported by The New York Times. The couple has three children.

Powell is a resident of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, where he has spent most of his life. His significant personal wealth, accumulated during decades in investment banking and private equity, was a subject of media coverage at the time of his nomination to the Fed chairmanship. The Washington Post reported in 2017 that he would be the wealthiest Fed chair since Marriner Eccles, who served from 1934 to 1948.

Powell has been associated with the Chevy Chase Club, a private social club in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

Recognition

Powell's leadership of the Federal Reserve during a period of extraordinary economic turbulence has generated substantial public attention. His actions during the COVID-19 pandemic—including the rapid deployment of emergency lending facilities and the reduction of interest rates to near zero—were credited by many economists and market participants with stabilizing the U.S. financial system during a period of severe stress.

At the same time, the monetary stimulus pursued under Powell's leadership contributed to the significant expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, which Fortune noted Powell himself acknowledged had grown "too big." The subsequent inflation surge and the aggressive cycle of rate increases that followed generated mixed reactions among the American public, with some praising the Fed's eventual success in curbing price pressures and others criticizing the scale of the initial stimulus.

Powell's approach to the chairmanship—characterized by efforts to build consensus and communicate clearly with the public—distinguished him from some of his predecessors. His willingness to hold press conferences after every Federal Open Market Committee meeting, rather than on a quarterly schedule, represented an expansion of Fed transparency.

His interactions with the political branches of government, particularly during President Trump's second term, drew significant media coverage and raised broader questions about the independence of the Federal Reserve from political influence. Powell's January 2026 public statement affirming his respect for "the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy" was interpreted by many commentators as a defense of the Fed's institutional independence.

Legacy

As of early 2026, with his chairmanship approaching its conclusion, Powell's legacy remained a subject of active debate among economists, policymakers, and financial market participants. His tenure encompassed one of the most aggressive monetary easing episodes in the Federal Reserve's history, followed by one of the most rapid tightening cycles.

Powell served as the first Fed chair in recent memory without an advanced degree in economics, bringing instead a background rooted in law, investment banking, and private equity. This profile shaped his approach to the role, which emphasized practical judgment and institutional pragmatism over adherence to any particular school of economic thought.

His navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic's economic impact, the inflation surge that followed, and the increasingly contentious political environment surrounding the Federal Reserve's independence will likely define assessments of his tenure for years to come. The nomination of Kevin Warsh as his successor marked the beginning of a transition at the central bank, with questions remaining about the future direction of monetary policy and the institutional culture Powell helped to shape during his years on the Board of Governors and as chair.

Powell's career arc—from Washington lawyer to Wall Street investment banker to Treasury official to Federal Reserve chair—represented a distinctive path to the leadership of the nation's central bank, one that reflected both the opportunities and the complexities of moving between the private sector and public service in the American system.