Loretta J. Mester

President and Chief Executive Officer

As president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Loretta J. Mester participates in the formulation of U.S. monetary policy, and oversees 1,000 employees in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh who conduct economic research, supervise banking institutions, and provide payment services to commercial banks and the U.S. government. She assumed her role as president and CEO in June 2014.

Dr. Mester was born in Baltimore, MD. She graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and economics from Barnard College of Columbia University. She earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Princeton University, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Prior to being named president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Dr. Mester had been executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where she was the chief policy advisor, attended meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, and oversaw the economists and analysts in the Research Department, as well as professionals in the Financial Statistics Department and the Payments Cards Center. She joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in 1985 as an economist, becoming senior vice president and director of research in 2000, and executive vice president and director of research in 2010.