Notes on a banker
The bets are already on for Mark Carney’s successor — and the first female Governor of the Bank of England could
CANADA’S maple leaf flag will be lowered over Threadneedle Street in exactly a year’s time when Mark Carney, the first overseas Bank of England Governor in the 324-year history of the institution, steps down from the City’s most prestigious position. But already the Square Mile is abuzz with rumour and speculation about the choice of his successor.
While Theresa May has the final say, Philip Hammond’s recommendation will be one of his most important decisions as Chancellor. A formal job advertisement for the 121st Governor could take place as soon as September, but the soundings have almost certainly been going on discreetly for months, over cosy Whitehall coffees or on the sidelines of international summits such as the G7 or Davos.
Candidates for the job will never acknowledge it, as one senior former policymaker says: “When you’re asked publicly whether you want the Governor’s job, the correct answer is always ‘no ’.” The appointment comes at a key moment for the UK’s financial district looking to forge a new path after Brexit. But the Chancellor also must consider whether to break another boundary and d decree that the Bank — nicknamed the “Old Lady of f Threadneedle Street” — should, at last, be run by one. e. Here we l o o k a t s o me o of f potential contenders.
Andrew Bailey
Mark Carney once jokingly gly referred to Andrew Bailey as the “big sexy turtle”, after the slow deliberations of the Prudential Regulation Authority — which he used to run — were compared to the lovemaking of Galapagos tortoises. But Bailey, the Leicester grammar school boy and veteran of more than 30 years at the Bank, starts as the odds-on bookie’s favourite for the job. He has plenty of supporters and a broad sweep of experience from his time at the helm of the PRA.
The Cambridge-educated Bailey’s credentials as a safe pair of hands were demonstrated two years ago when he was drafted in to bring stability to the Financial Conduct Authority after a period of turmoil that saw the previous boss ousted.
Bailey has never sat on the Bank’s rate-setting committee, but the 59-yearold south Londoner has held senior roles across the Bank and is an accomplished economist. He’s a good man for a crisis too: he was as cool as a cucumber as the Bank’s chief cashier in 2008 when the Royal Bank of Scotland’s treasurer turned up at his office demanding £25 billion that day to stay afloat.
Raghuram Rajan
If Philip Hammond was tempted to look abroad again for the next Governor, India’s Raghuram Rajan — one of the hottest properties in central banking — could fit the bill. Rajan, the son of a spy, correctly predicted the financial crisis two years early in 2005 when he was the IMF’s chief economist, putting a lot of senior noses out of joint in the process.
The 55-year-old led the Reserve Bank of India for three years in 2014 and the more excitable commentary had him down as putting the “sex into the Sensex” (the Indian stock market) when he joined the central bank. But aside from the James Bond mock-ups and parody Twitter accounts, he was named central banker of the year in 2014 for a s e r i e s o f r e fo r ms to help I n d i a’s economy.
Rajan’s credentials may put him ahead of another central banker turned academic, former Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker, whose name has also been thrown into the hat.
But Rajan also made enemies at home, rubbing up prime minister Narendra Modi the wrong way with outspoken comments about policy — and he was the first RBI governor in more than 20 years to not be offered d a second term. Now, w, back in academia in
Chicago, he has played ed down interest in the he job without categorirically denying he’d take ake it if offered. But would uld
Rajan, whose catchchphrase is “I do what at I do”, be too much of a loose cannon for the e Treasury?
Baroness (Shriti) Vadera
Baroness Shriti Vadera — the chairman of Spanish bank Santander’s UK arm — was prominent on the top table at the City’s signature Mansion House event last week, further fuelling speculation that she could be in the running for the Bank of England job. Certainly the Oxford-educated baroness has the intellect; she also has a firm foot in both banking and politics after a career at investment bank UBS Warburg and a spell in government under Gordon Brown, who made her a life peer.
The 56-year-old has been variously described as a “force of nature”, banging people’s heads together and instrumen-