James Bullard, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, on Thursday announced that he will leave the bank effective Aug. 14.
Mr. Bullard will be inaugural dean of the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business at Purdue University, effective Aug. 15, according to a St. Louis Fed news release.
Kathleen O'Neill Paese, the bank's first vice president and chief operating officer, assumed the duties of interim president and CEO, effective immediately, the bank said. Moreover, a bank committee will retain a national executive search firm to assist in finding Mr. Bullard's permanent replacement.
Mr. Bullard, who has worked at the St. Louis Fed for 33 years, including the last 15 as president, has recused himself from his monetary policy role on the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee and other related duties and has ceased all public speaking, the announcement said. As one of 12 regional Fed bank presidents, Mr. Bullard had a rotating vote on the Federal Open Market Committee.
Jim McKelvey, chair of the St. Louis Fed's board of directors, said in the news release that Mr. Bullard "has brought his scholarly expertise and often prescient views to the policy table as the Fed navigated several remarkable economic issues during his 15 years as St. Louis Fed president: the Great Recession, the zero lower bound, high unemployment, the COVID pandemic and the current high inflation."
