Neel Kashkari

Neel Kashkari has been President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis since 2016. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Hank Paulson during the 2008 financial crisis, where he administered the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) — the government's emergency banking bailout. He was nicknamed "TARP czar" for his high-profile management of the program. After Treasury, he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California in 2014 before being appointed to the Minneapolis Fed. At the Fed, Kashkari became known for consistently dovish monetary policy positions — frequently dissenting in favor of keeping rates lower for longer than the consensus — and for his public advocacy for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks through mandatory size limits or structural separation, positions he developed into a detailed Minneapolis Fed plan. He is one of the most publicly accessible regional Fed presidents, known for engaging in informal public forums and town halls to explain monetary policy decisions.