CFA INSTITUTE SYSTEMIC RISK COUNCIL ANNOUNCES REORGANIZATION

On September 16, 2021, CFA Institute announced that it will be reorganizing the Systemic Risk Council initiative that it established in 2013. 

The Council has been reorganized to feature two co-chairs — Simon Johnson as Council Co-Chair (U.S.) and Erkki Liikanen, Council Co-Chair (Euro area) – to cover the two primary regions of activity.  The SRC will continue to operate as a private sector working group dedicated to serving as the independent, non-commercial voice for proper systemic risk oversight and regulation of markets. “We are excited and honored to carry on the Council’s work and to emphasize our commitment to a clear, trusted and independent voice on needed systemic oversight.  This is particularly true as issues like the global pandemic, climate change and crypto currency bring new challenges to global economic stability,” noted Johnson and Liikanen.

Simon Johnson is the Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is  a former member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisers and previously served as the International Monetary Fund’s Economic Counsellor (chief economist) in March 2007.  From 2012 to 2019, he was a member of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee.  From July 2014 to 2017, Johnson was a member of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), within which he chaired the Global Vulnerabilities Working Group.

Erkki Liikanen currently serves as Chairman of the IFRS Foundation Board of Trustees. He was a two-term Governor of the Bank of Finland and served on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank from 2004 to 2018.  Mr. Liikanen has had an extensive career in public service including two terms as a Commissioner of the European Union and service as Finland’s Ambassador to the European Union.  Mr. Liikanen has worked internationally for many years serving as a governor of the International Monetary Fund and in his role as member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, he chaired a group of experts set up by the European Commission to consider EU banking sector reforms in the wake of the financial crisis. The group’s recommendations are known as the ‘Liikanen report’. 

Meanwhile , Jean‐Claude Trichet will continue to serve as Senior Adviser to the Systemic Risk Council, a role he has served in since 2017.   Mr. Trichet was President of the European Central Bank, the European Systemic Risk Board and the “Global economy meeting” of Central Bank Governors in Basel until the end of 2011. Previously, he oversaw the French Treasury for six years and was Governor of the Banque de France for ten years.   Mr. Trichet was a member of the G-20 High level independent panel on financing the global commons for Pandemic, set up in January 2021 . He is Honorary board chairperson at Bruegel (Brussels) , Honorary chairman of the Group of Thirty (Washington), European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission .  He is also member of “Institut de France” (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques).

In addition, Sheila Bair, the former chair of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from 2006 to 2011 and the founding chair of the Systemic Risk Council,  will continue to support the Council in the role of Senior Advisor filling the vacancy created by the passing of Paul Volcker.  Ms. Bair currently serves on several corporate and governing boards, including the first women Chair of Fannie Mae, Deputy Chair at  Bunge Ltd., and as a Trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security organization.  She served as President of Washington College from August 2015 to June 2017.  Ms. Bair previously served as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Senior Vice President for Government Relations of the New York Stock Exchange and as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

 “We are extremely pleased to have these top-level leaders and policy experts leading this initiative going forward,” said  CFA Institute Managing Director Paul Andrews. Andrews, who will also become a member of the Council confirmed that  moving forward the initiative will be renamed the CFA Institute Systemic Risk Council.   “Our intention is to associate the SRC with the CFA Institute more visibly to demonstrate our commitment and sustained financial support of this independent working-group effort,” noted Andrews.  

Outgoing SRC chair, Sir Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, has been serving as the SRC chair for nearly six years and leaves the Council in a stronger place. “We are exceedingly grateful to Sir Paul Tucker for the leadership he has provided over the past several years, advancing us to this new phase of the Council’s endeavors,” said Paul Andrews.  “It has been an honor to lead such an extraordinarily expert group of members, from both sides of the Atlantic, in highlighting what, a decade after the global crisis, still needs to be done to ensure an adequately resilient financial system,” said Tucker. “With the constituency for stability always weaker than the public interest warrants, it is important for the Council to carry on this vital work.”