Capt’ Glenn stays put as Carney gets the gong

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Canada’s current chief central banker, Mark Carney, has been poached to run the Bank of England, pipping our own Capt’ Glenn (if the denied rumours were true). From the BBC:

The Bank of England’s new governor, Mark Carney, was head of Canada’s central bank and is a respected figure in the banking world.

He will take over from Sir Mervyn King, the current chief, when he retires in June next year.

Mr Carney was one of five possible candidates whose skills were deemed sufficient to meet the challenges of the top job – a job which will become far bigger next year when the Bank takes back responsibility for regulation from the Financial Services Authority, which is being closed.

He was the eighth governor of the Bank of Canada, where he was five years into a seven-year term.

Nationality

Born in Canada in 1965, Mr Carney is the son of a school teacher.

He was born in the small town of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories but is no stranger to the UK.

All three of his degrees are in economics, his first from Harvard, but his masters and doctorate were both gained at Oxford University.

He also spent time in the UK during his 13 years with the investment bank, Goldman Sachs, which took him to London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto.

And his links are bolstered by the fact he has a British wife.

Indeed, they can only get stronger – he is expected to apply to become a British citizen.

The citizenship test given to candidates is unlikely to present a problem.

Influence

The Bank of England job is not the first non-Canadian post he has been considered for.

He was also a candidate for the job as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, a job that went to Christine Lagarde.

Mr Carney was once listed by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential people in the world.

A fluent French speaker, Mr Carney was appointed deputy governor at the Bank of Canada in 2003, spending a year there before becoming senior associate deputy minister of finance until his appointment to the central bank’s top job.

As well as being the head of the Bank of Canada, he serves as chairman of the Basel-based Financial Stability Board (FSB) and as a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

He has a certain amount of intellectual and emotional distance from the banking world he inhabits.

He said the Occupy anti-capitalist protesters were engaged in a “democratic expression of views” and were “entirely constructive”.

He also reportedly had such a set-to with giant bank JP Morgan Chase’s boss Jamie Dimon over regulatory reforms that another banking chief was said to have had to email him to patch things up.

His salary by most standards – although not the City’s – is very generous.

At £480,000 it outstrips Sir Mervyn’s £305,000 a year, with pension contributions on top of that.

But he may well have to work harder than him for his money throughout the five years he is planning to stay as governor of the Bank of England.

This continues the rather unexplored trend of British intellectual leadership in matters economic in the post-GFC world. Carney is a famous straight shooter and, to be honest, I can’t think of someone I’d rather poach.

As for Capt’ Glenn, perhaps he never was in the running. Or, his softly, softly approach to bank regulation did not appeal so much to the British. Or, perhaps the money was just too lousy!

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.