Washington, D.C. – October 4, 2023

CFA Institute Systemic Risk Council (SRC) today announced that it has added three new members to the Council.  They are  Dr. Elke König of Germany, René Karsenti of France and Christina Romer from the United States.

Erkki Liikanen, Co-Chair of the Council said, “We are thrilled to add these three very talented and experienced people to the Systemic Risk Council, broadening our European representation and adding further international perspective to our Council discussions.”

Dr. Elke König is a German MBA in business and former auditor. From January 2012 until 2015, she was president of the Federal  Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). In December 2014, she became the first Chair of the newly established Single Resolution Board (SRB) of the Single Resolution Mechanism, headquartered in Brussels. She served as Chair of the SRB until January 2023, when her second term expired.  After qualifying in business administration and obtaining a doctorate, she spent many years working for companies in the financial and insurance sector including KPMG Deutsche Treuhandgesellschaft in Cologne, Munich Re Group (Head of Accounting),and ; Hannover Rückversicherung AG as Chief Financial Officer.   From 2010 to the end of 2011, Dr König was a member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in London.

René Karsenti is Senior Advisor to the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), having previously served as President. From 1995 until joining ICMA in 2006, Mr. Karsenti was Director General of Finance at the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg, having previously served as Treasurer of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London from its inception in May 1991 to 1995. Prior to joining EBRD, from 1979 Mr. Karsenti held a variety of senior positions in the treasury organisations of the World Bank Group (IBRD & IFC), including as IFC Treasurer.

Christina Romer is Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).  She is a specialist in economic history and macroeconomics and is best known for her work on the causes of the Great Depression, the conduct and effects of macroeconomic policy, and the impact of financial crises. Professor Romer served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from January 2009 to September 2010. Professor Romer graduated from the College of William & Mary and received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Welcoming the appointments, SRC Co-Chair Simon Johnson added, “We are delighted these distinguished experts will be joining our systemic risk discussions. They bring a wealth experience and diverse perspectives to this important work.”  The appointments are effective immediately and bring the Council to a total of nineteen members.  The Council is committed to engaging with U.S., European, and other global policy makers at the highest levels in order to preserve a stable financial system. For the full bios of members and more on the SRC please go to www.systemicriskcouncil.org.

On August 30, 2023, the Systemic Risk Council (the Council) offered its response to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed Covered Clearing Agency (CCA) Resilience and Recovery and Wind-Down Plans’ proposal to improve CCAs’ ability to manage stressed markets through monitoring and margining practices. The Council strongly supports the Proposals as far as they go. The Council believes they contain incentives that should encourage CCAs to take steps that will prevent their becoming “systemic-risk transmitters and amplifiers.” At the same time, the Council believes the Proposals can be enhanced by considering a number of essential elements that would significantly augment resilience against a CCA’s failure, preventing almost certain systemic shockwaves that could undermine the stability of the financial system.

Letter PDF

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) recently voted to issue 12 CFR Part 1310 (Authority to Require Supervision and Regulation of Certain Nonbank Financial Companies) and the Analytic Framework for Financial Stability Risk Identification, Assessment, and Response (Proposed Analytics Framework or PAF) for public comment. The Systemic Risk Council believes that non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and their activities represent a growing and unaddressed vulnerability to financial stability in the U.S. and beyond. We support the FSOC as it recalibrates the designation process and upgrades its capabilities to gather necessary data and improve its line-of-sight on nonbank leverage, interconnectedness, liquidity and risk management gaps. We believe that the measure of success for these Proposals will be a process that is calibrated for prompt, corrective action and where the Office of Financial Research will have appropriate resources for staffing, monitoring capabilities, and data analysis to implement the PAF.

Letter PDF