Timothy F. Geithner

Timothy F. Geithner was appointed the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, like each of his predecessors since the Bank’s third president, Allan Sproul, he served as the vice chairman and permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee. He was also the chairman of the Group of Ten’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems.

Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York. As a result of his father’s job as an international development official for the US government, Geithner spent a great deal of his childhood living in foreign countries, including Zimbabwe, India, and Thailand. 

Geithner attended Dartmouth College and earned his bachelor’s degree in government and Asian studies in 1983. He continued his education at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies earning his master’s degree in international economics and East Asian studies in 1985.

In 1988, Mr. Geithner joined the Department of the Treasury where he worked in three administrations for five secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. From 2001 until 2003 he worked for the International Monetary Fund as director of the Policy Development and Review Department.

As president of the New York Fed, Geithner was directly involved in many pivotal policymaking decisions made during the financial crisis that started in 2007. During that time, he worked closely with the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Ben Bernanke, and the secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson.

After the 2008 US presidential election, President Barack Obama nominated Geithner to be the seventy-fifth secretary of the Treasury. After the US Senate confirmed his nomination, he took the oath of office on January 26, 2009. He served out his four-year term, making him President Obama’s longest-serving economic adviser. He returned to New York in 2013 and joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow.

Written by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. See disclaimer.