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Jelena McWilliams

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Jelena McWilliams
Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Incumbent
Assumed office
June 5, 2018
PresidentDonald Trump
Joe Biden
Preceded byMartin J. Gruenberg
Member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Incumbent
Assumed office
June 5, 2018
PresidentDonald Trump
Joe Biden
Preceded byThomas M. Hoenig
Personal details
Born
Jelena Obrenić

(1973-07-29) July 29, 1973 (age 51)
Belgrade,[1] Serbia, Yugoslavia
Political partyRepublican
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley (BS, JD)

Jelena McWilliams (née Obrenić; born July 29, 1973)[2] is Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She was nominated to the position and to the FDIC Board of Directors by President Donald Trump, and the Senate confirmed her appointment on May 24, 2018.[3] She was sworn in as Chairman on June 5, 2018. Previously, McWilliams was executive vice president and chief legal officer of Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Early life and education

Born Jelena Obrenić (Serbian Cyrillic: Јелена Обренић) in Belgrade, Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, McWilliams traveled to the United States at age 18 as part of a high-school exchange program. She attended the University of California at Berkeley for college. She funded her education by working a series of minimum-wage jobs. She wrote her thesis on the war in her native Yugoslavia.[4] McWilliams graduated with highest honors with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and went on to earn her law degree from the UC Berkeley School of Law.[5][6]

Career

McWilliams began practicing law working with tech firms at Morrison & Foerster[4] LLP in Palo Alto, California and then moved to Hogan & Hartson LLP, now Hogan Lovells LLP, in Washington, D.C.[5]

From 2007 to 2010, McWilliams worked as a lawyer at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors,[5] where she focused on a proposal for rules meant to make it easier for consumers to dispute mistakes on their credit reports and to understand their mortgages.[4]

McWilliams worked in the United States Senate for six years, first as assistant chief counsel for the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and then as chief counsel and deputy staff director for the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.[5] At the banking committee, McWilliams worked with chairpersons Senator Richard Shelby (R, Alabama) and Senator Mike Crapo (R, Idaho) on, among other issues, the implementation of and efforts to rework or repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank banking-regulation reform act.[4]

McWilliams served as executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary for Fifth Third from January 2017 until May 2018.[7]

FDIC nomination

On November 30, 2017, the White House press secretary issued a release announcing the President's intention to nominate McWilliams to serve as chairperson of the FDIC.[5] McWilliams had been under consideration for the appointment since July 2017, when James Clinger withdrew his nomination for the position.[8]

By year-end 2017, Fifth Third determined that if McWilliams were confirmed as FDIC head, it would not move to have her return the $300,000 signing bonus the bank had paid her when she joined its staff.[9]

Before McWilliams' confirmation, The Wall Street Journal previewed the proposed change in leadership at the FDIC, along with changes at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, saying banks "can expect to see significant further relief" from postcrisis rules under the new leadership. In that context, the article referenced Dodd-Frank, The Volcker Rule, the Community Reinvestment Act, small-dollar loans ("Trump officials have said they want to encourage banks to offer loan products that compete" with payday lenders), new banks (from 237 new banks approved by the FDIC in 2005, two were approved in 2016 and seven in 2017; "McWilliams has said she wants to speed up new-bank approvals"), fintech, leveraged lending (loans to heavily in debted companies), cybersecurity ("McWilliams cited cybersecurity as one of her priorities during her Senate testimony"), and capital, liquidity and overall and supplementary leverage rules.[10]

Personal life

McWilliams, who is a single mother, has one daughter. She moved her parents from Yugoslavia to the United States after saving enough money to do so.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Who Is Jelena McWilliams?", AllGov.com, December 12, 2017. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  2. ^ "Info, Background on Jelena McWilliams", RegReport.Info, January 15, 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  3. ^ Senate Confirms FDIC Nominee Jelena McWilliams, The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2018
  4. ^ a b c d e Rexrode, Christine, and Ryan Tracy, "From Belgrade to the Pinnacle of Washington’s Banking World" (subscription required), The Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e "President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Jelena McWilliams of Ohio to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation", The White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 30, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  6. ^ Maclay, Kathleen, Media relations, "Trump taps alumna to lead FDIC", Berkeley News, December 14, 2017. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  7. ^ "President Trump Will Choose Jelena McWilliams to Lead the FDIC", Reuters via Fortune, November 30, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  8. ^ Schmidt, Robert, and Jesse Hamilton, "Fifth Third Lawyer Is Said to Be a Top Candidate for FDIC Chief", Bloomberg Politics, July 28, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  9. ^ Watkins, Steve, "Fifth Third legal chief won’t have to return bonus if she heads to FDIC" (subscription required), Cincinnati Business Courier, December 18, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  10. ^ Clozel, Lalita, "Arrival of Final Bank Regulator Could Speed Up Easing of Rules" (subscription required), The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2018. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
Political offices
Preceded by Member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
2018–present 		Incumbent
Preceded by Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
2018–present
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