Colombian economist is nominated as governor of the US Federal Reserve.

The American President, Joe Biden nominated this Friday the Colombian-American economist Adriana Kugler to be governor of the Federal Reserve (Fed)which would make her the first Latina to be part of the board that leads the US body.

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Kugler is currently the Executive Director of Banco Mundia Groupl for the United States. According to the White House statement, she is an expert in labor markets, international economics and applied econometrics and has published in the main journals on the subject.

Was named Chief Economist of the Department of Labor under the Barack Obama Administration (2009-2017), of which Biden was vice president, and has also been part of the Board of Science, Technology and Economic Policy of the National Academies of Sciences of the United States.

His nomination must be ratified by the Senate, but Democrats are in control of that chamber, so no hurdles are expected. If confirmed, according to the US media, will be the first Latina to assume that responsibility in the history of the organizationfounded in December 1913.

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The chairman of the Senate Foreign Committee, Democrat Bob Menéndez, had complained in February that in these 109 years there had not been any Hispanic there. “Why is it important? Because it is the largest minority in the country,” he said.

Biden also nominated this Friday Philip Jefferson, current member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, for the vice presidency of the group. The economist has held in the past, among other positions, as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Davidson College.

Her nomination joins that of Lisa Cook as governor, a position she has held since 2022 and was set to expire in January 2024. From 2011 to 2012, under the Obama presidency, she was senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisersand has also advised the Treasury Department on International Affairs.

The Fed’s Board of Governors is made up of seven people and its term is 14 years. Every two years a new term begins and a person covering the entire period cannot repeat the charge; but if she joins to complete a half term, as in the case of Cook, she can be elected.

The Fed is chaired by Jerome Powell and the vice presidency has been vacant since Lael Brainard was nominated in February as director of the White House National Economic Council. Jefferson would be the second black vice president in the history of the Fed, after Roger Ferguson (1999-2016).