Two Fed Nominees Would Be Among Youngest to Join Board

The two nominees announced Friday to join the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors will be among the youngest members ever to serve in that body.

White House aide Kevin Warsh, 35, and former aide Randall Kroszner, 43, have wide experience on Wall Street, in academia and in Washington.

If the Senate approves the nominations, the two will dramatically shift the composition of the Fed’s seven-member Washington-based board toward youth and somewhat more toward expertise in the finance sector rather than the macroeconomics background that has traditionally dominated the board.

Warsh’s and Kroszner’s ages total less than that of retiring Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is 79. Their arrival and Greenspan’s departure will bring down the average age of the Fed’s board by about nine years, to 52, compared with where it stood before the current vacancies.

Warsh is a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley and has been a member of the White House National Economic Council since 2002, on which he focuses on domestic finance and capital market issues.

Kroszner, a professor at the University of Chicago Business School, specializes in international finance and financial regulatory issues and is a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

If their nominations are approved, the Fed board will be back to full strength for the first time since last summer.