Esther L. George is president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which has authority over U.S. monetary policy. Prior to her appointment as president on Oct. 1, 2011, she had been the Bank’s chief operating officer since August 2009.
George joined the Fed in 1982 and served much of her career in the Division of Supervision and Risk Management. She began by becoming a commissioned bank examiner and eventually served for ten years as the District’s chief regulator. In that capacity, she was responsible for oversight of the District’s state-chartered member banks and nearly 1,000 bank and financial holding companies, as well as the Bank’s discount window and risk management functions. She was directly involved in the Tenth District’s banking supervision and discount window lending activities during the banking crisis of the 1980s and post-9/11.
She is a former chair of the Federal Reserve System’s Community Banking Organizations Management Group. George has also served as the acting director of the Federal Reserve’s Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.
George is a native of Missouri. Beyond the Tenth Federal Reserve District, she hosts the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. She has also participated in the Bank for International Settlement’s Financial Stability Institute programs in Lima, Abu Dhabi, Beijing and Malaysia.