Mark Carney

Mark Carney OC
Carney at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, 2013
Governor of the Bank of England
Incumbent
Assumed office July 1, 2013 (2013-07-01)
Preceded by	Mervyn King
Chairman of the Financial Stability Board
Incumbent
Assumed office November 4, 2011
Preceded by	Mario Draghi
Governor of the Bank of Canada
In office February 1, 2008 – June 3, 2013
Preceded by	David Dodge
Succeeded by	Stephen Poloz
Personal details
Born	Mark Joseph Carney (1965-03-16) March 16, 1965 Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada
Nationality	Canadian British Irish
Spouse(s)	Diana Fox (m. 1994)
Children	4
Residence	London, England
Alma mater	Harvard University Nuffield College, Oxford St Peter's College, Oxford
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature
Mark Carney's voice from the BBC programme Today, August 8, 2013[1]

Mark Joseph Carney, OC (born March 16, 1965) is a Canadian economist who currently serves as Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the G20's Financial Stability Board.^[2]

Carney began his career at Goldman Sachs before joining the Canadian Department of Finance. He then served as the Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 until 2013, when he moved to his current post at the Bank of England. He intends to serve in this role until June 2019.^[3]

Early life

Carney was born on March 16, 1965, in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories,^[2][4] the son of Verlie Margaret (née Kemper) and Robert James Martin Carney.^[5][6][7] When Carney was six, the family moved to Edmonton, Alberta. ^[4] Carney has three siblings—older brother Seán, younger brother Brian, and sister Brenda.^[4][7] Carney attended St. Francis Xavier High School at Edmonton,^[8] before studying at Harvard University.^[4][9]

Carney graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree, with high honours in economics,^[4] in 1988, before postgraduate studies at St Peter's College, Oxford, where he received masters and doctoral degrees in the same field (in 1993 and 1995, respectively).^[10][9] The title of his D.Phil thesis is "The dynamic advantage of competition".^[11]

Career

Goldman Sachs

Carney spent thirteen years with Goldman Sachs^[12] in its London, Tokyo, New York City and Toronto offices. His progressively more senior positions included co-head of sovereign risk; executive director, emerging debt capital markets; and managing director, investment banking. He worked on South Africa's post-apartheid venture into international bond markets, and was involved in Goldman's work with the 1998 Russian financial crisis.^[4]

Department of Finance

From November 2004 to October 2007, Carney was senior associate deputy minister and G7 deputy at the Canadian Department of Finance. He served under Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale and Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. During this time Carney oversaw the Canadian Government's controversial plan to tax income trusts at source.^[13] Carney was also the "point man" in the Canadian government's profitable sale of its 19-percent stake in Petro-Canada.^[14][15]

Bank of Canada

Deputy Governor, 2003–2004

Carney first joined the Bank of Canada as a Deputy Governor on August 5, 2003. About a year later he was seconded to the Federal Department of Finance as Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Finance, effective November 15, 2004.^[16]

Governor, February 2008–June 2013

Carney returned to the Bank of Canada in November 2007 after his appointment as Governor, and served as advisor to retiring Governor David Dodge before formally assuming Dodge's position on February 1, 2008.^[17] Carney was selected over Paul Jenkins, the Senior Deputy Governor, who had been considered the front-runner to succeed Dodge.^[18] Carney took on this role during the depths of the recent global financial crisis. At the time of his appointment, Carney was the youngest central bank governor among the G8 and G20 groups of nations.^[19]

The financial crisis

Carney at the 2010 World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland

Carney's actions as Governor of the Bank of Canada are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the financial crisis that began in 2007.^[20][21]

The epoch-making feature of his tenure as governor remains the decision to cut the overnight rate by 50 basis points in March 2008, only one month after his appointment. While the European Central Bank delivered a rate increase in July 2008, Carney anticipated the leveraged-loan crisis would trigger global contagion. When policy rates in Canada hit the effective lower-bound, the central bank combatted the crisis with the non-standard monetary tool: "conditional commitment" in April 2009 to hold the policy rate for at least one year, in a boost to domestic credit conditions and market confidence. Output and employment began to recover from mid-2009, in part thanks to monetary stimulus.^[22] The Canadian economy outperformed those of its G7 peers during the crisis, and Canada was the first G7 nation to have both its GDP and employment recover to pre-crisis levels.

The Bank's decision to provide substantial additional liquidity to the Canadian financial system,^[23] and its unusual step of announcing a commitment to keep interest rates at their lowest possible level for one year,^[24] appear to have been significant contributors to Canada's weathering of the crisis.^[25]

Canada's risk-averse fiscal and regulatory environment is also cited as a factor. In 2009 a Newsweek columnist wrote, "Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize."^[26]

Carney earned various accolades for his leadership during the financial crisis: he was named one of The Financial Times 's "Fifty who will frame the way forward",^[27] and of Time Magazine 's "2010 Time 100".^[28] In May 2011, Reader's Digest named him "Editor's Choice for Most Trusted Canadian".^[29]

In October 2012, Carney was named "Central Bank Governor of the Year 2012" by the editors of Euromoney magazine.^[30]

International organisation memberships

On November 4, 2011, Carney was named Chairman of the Basel-based Financial Stability Board. In a statement, Carney credited his appointment to "the strong reputation of Canada's financial system and the leading role that Canada has played in helping to develop many of the most important international reforms". The three-year term is a part-time commitment, allowing Carney to complete his term at the Bank of Canada. While there has been no indication of his priorities as chairman, on the day of his appointment the Board published a list of 29 banks that were considered sufficiently large as to pose a risk to the global economy should they fail.^[31][32] At his first press conference as Chairman of the FSB in January 2012, Carney laid out his key priorities for the board.^[33]

Carney served as Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements' Committee on the Global Financial System from July 2010 until January 2012.^[34] Carney is also a member of the Group of Thirty, an international body of leading financiers and academics, and of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.^[35][36] Carney attended the annual meetings of the Bilderberg Group in 2011 and 2012.^[37][38]

Carney is member of the International Advisory Board at the Blavatnik School of Government (University of Oxford).

Governor of the Bank of England

On November 26, 2012, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced the appointment of Carney to be Governor of the Bank of England. Carney succeeded Sir Mervyn King on July 1, 2013.^[39] He is the first non-Briton to be appointed to the role since the Bank was established in 1694. The Bank of England was given additional powers from 2013, such as the ability to set bank capital requirements.^[40]

Prior to taking up the post, Carney had already indicated disagreement with the Bank of England's Executive Director of Financial Stability Andy Haldane, specifically on leverage ratios and on bank break-ups. He has been quoted as saying Haldane does not have a "proper understanding of the facts" on bank regulation.^[22] Though the term is officially eight years, Carney has said that he intends to stand down after five. He is likely to have been offered a total pay package of about £624,000 ($990,000) per year, approximately £100,000 ($160,000) more per year than his predecessor.^[39]

EU Referendum

Carney has been accused of making pro-remain statements in the British EU referendum warning of risks to the economy.^[41][42][43] Several pro-leave campaigners have questioned the legitimacy of his claims,^[44] as well as whether he should be expressing such views at all.^[45] However, Carney has made it clear he feels it his duty to speak up on such issues.^[46]

Following the 'Leave' vote in the referendum, Carney was put under pressure from Eurosceptic politicians to resign as a result of a perceived pro-Remain stance during the campaign.^[47][48]

Personal life

Carney met his wife, Diana Fox (sister-in-law of Lord Rotherwick), a British economist specializing in developing nations, while at the University of Oxford.^[29] She is said to be active in various environment and social justice causes.^[49] The couple married in July 1994^[50] while he was finishing his doctoral thesis. They have four daughters and lived in the Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood of Ottawa before moving to London in 2013.^[4]

During his Harvard years, Carney was back-up goalie for the school's ice hockey team.^[4][51][52] Carney continued playing hockey with the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club while studying at Nuffield College, Oxford.^[53]

Carney completed the 2015 London Marathon in 03:31:22, shaving 17 minutes off his time at the 2011 Ottawa Marathon.

In addition to Canadian citizenship, Carney also holds British and Irish citizenship.^[54]

Honours and distinctions

• Order of Canada^[55]
• Knight of Malta^[56]
• Freeman of the City of London^[57]

References

Further reading

• Argitis, Theophilos (May 1, 2013). "Bank of Canada Governor Carney's Lecture in Edmonton (Text)" (transcript). Bloomberg. Retrieved June 24, 2016. 

External links

• Biography from the Bank of England

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee
	Governor: Mark Carney (July 2013 – present)
	July 2013 – October 2013:	Carney | Bean | Tucker | Dale | Fisher | Miles | McCafferty | Weale | Broadbent
	November 2013 – May 2014:	Carney | Bean | Cunliffe | Dale | Fisher | Miles | McCafferty | Weale | Broadbent
	June 2014:	Carney | Bean | Cunliffe | Haldane | Fisher | Miles | McCafferty | Weale | Broadbent
	July 2014:	Carney | Broadbent | Cunliffe | Haldane | Fisher | Miles | McCafferty | Weale | Forbes
	August 2014 – August 2015:	Carney | Broadbent | Cunliffe | Haldane | Shafik | Miles | McCafferty | Weale | Forbes
	September 2015 – July 2016:	Carney | Broadbent | Cunliffe | Haldane | Shafik | McCafferty | Weale | Forbes | Vlieghe
	August 2016 – present:	Carney | Broadbent | Cunliffe | Haldane | Shafik | McCafferty | Forbes | Vlieghe | Saunders

Governors of the Bank of Canada
Towers Coyne Rasminsky Bouey Crow Thiessen Dodge Carney Poloz