Neel Kashkari

Neel Tushar Kashkari
George W. Bush administration archives, February 27, 2006. Hosted a
Archives.gov
Accessed January 19, 2014. (born July 30, 1973) is an American banker, economist and politician who is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. As interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability from October 2008 to May 2009, he oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was a major component of the U.S. government's response to the Financial crisis of 2007–2008. A Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in the 2014 election.

Born and raised in Ohio, and educated at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Kashkari worked initially as an aerospace engineer. After attending business school at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he became an investment banker, covering the information technology security sector for Goldman Sachs.

Henry Paulson, the former head of Goldman, and then Secretary of the Treasury, hired Kashkari on as an aide. Kashkari was eventually named Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development. At Treasury, he played a number of roles in the response to the financial crisis and the subprime mortgage crisis that preceded it, most notably administering the TARP.

Kashkari left government and began working for Pimco in 2009, leading that company's push into the equities market. He resigned from Pimco in January 2013 to explore a run for public office. One year later, he announced his candidacy for Governor of California. He came in second in California's nonpartisan blanket primary but lost the general election to incumbent governor Jerry Brown.

He was named the new president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve November 10, 2015, succeeding Narayana Kocherlakota who announced his resignation in June.

Early life and education

Kashkari was born on July 30, 1973,Theresa Howard
$700B man: Former adviser to Paulson takes bailout post
''USA Today'', October 7, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. in Akron, Ohio, to Sheila Kashkari, a pathologist at Akron City Hospital, and Chaman Kashkari, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Akron.Sabrina Eaton
Browns fan Neel Kashkari hopes to topple California Gov. Jerry Brown
''The Plain Dealer'', February 11, 2014. Accessed February 11, 2014. His parents are Kashmiri Hindus who were born and raised in Srinagar in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and immigrated to the United States in 1964. They settled in Stow, a suburb of Akron, where Neel Kashkari grew up.Associated Press
Kashkari faces major task as 'bailout czar'
''USA Today'', October 11, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. His parents were well known within the local community of Indian Hindus.Heidi N. Moore
Neel Kashkari: a portrait of the $700 billion man as a young banker
''The Wall Street Journal'', October 10, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. His older sister, Meera Kashkari Kelley,Charlie Savage and Ben White
Bailout role elevates U.S. official
''The New York Times'', October 8, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. is a physician specializing in infectious diseases.Gilbert Cruz
Neel Kashkari, the $700 billion man
''Time'', October 8, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. Growing up, Neel's parents and sister were liberal, but his free-market views led him to identify more with the Republican Party.

Kashkari attended Stow–Munroe Falls High School before transferring to the Western Reserve Academy. He graduated in 1991 with honors in mathematics and was elected graduation speaker. In 2009, he described his high school grades as not good enough to apply to top-tier universities.

Kashkari earned bachelor’s (1995) and master’s (1998) degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He was the team leader for the mechanical engineering component of the school's entry in the 1997 Sunrayce, a solar-powered vehicle race.

Career

Private sector

After completing his master's degree, Kashkari moved to Redondo Beach, California, and worked as an engineer for TRW Inc., a contractor for NASA. There he worked on a stabilizing component for the James Webb Space Telescope.

Kashkari left TRW to enter the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, earning an MBA in 2002. At Wharton he was president of the Finance Club and was part of the student organizing team for the annual Wharton Finance Conference.

Kashkari interned at the investment bank Goldman Sachs during the summer between his two academic years at Wharton. After graduation from Wharton in 2002, he joined Goldman's San Francisco office as an associateWailin Wong
The rapid rise of bailout czar
''Chicago Tribune'', October 13, 2008. Accessed December 30, 2013. covering software companies in the investment banking division. In this role, he was part of the team that advised clients on mergers and acquisitions, as well as other financial matters, until leaving the firm in 2006.U.S. Department of the Treasury. Biography of Neel Kashkari, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics
Archived
from the original at the Internet Archive on January 18, 2009. Accessed December 30, 2013.

He was a regional finalist for the White House Fellows program.Betty Lin-Fisher
Bailout czar gives local alma mater lesson on recovery
''Akron Beacon Journal'', April 11, 2009. Accessed January 6, 2014.

Treasury Department

In May 2006 President George W. Bush announced his intention to appoint Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury. Kashkari contacted Paulson and asked to join him at Treasury. Despite not knowing Kashkari well, Paulson agreed to meet with him, and much later offered him a job as a policy generalist. Kashkari accepted, and then Paulson remembered to confirm that Kashkari was a Republican. After the U.S. Senate confirmed Paulson, he and Kashkari started at Treasury on the same day. Kashkari was one of several Goldman employees who followed Paulson to Treasury.

Kashkari began as a special assistant to Paulson working on energy policy. He and Allan B. Hubbard developed Bush's " Twenty in Ten" plan to promote energy conservation.Michael S. Rosenwald
The $700 billion man with an engineer's mind
''Washington Post'', October 9, 2008. Accessed January 5, 2014. He also worked on issues related to India, particularly infrastructure development. In November 2007, Bush nominated Kashkari to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development. The U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination in June 2008, and Kashkari was sworn in the following month.Matthew Yglesias
All your financial system are belong to Neel Kashkari
ThinkProgress, October 6, 2008. Accessed January 2, 2014.

2008 financial crisis

By the summer 2007, concerns over the credit quality of private-label securitizations, underwriting standards and institutional solvency accelerated. The value of unconventional financial instruments backed by U.S. subprime mortgages declined sharply as it became clear that many of the borrowers would continue to default on the mortgages. This caused a housing glut and crisis as the banks holding the mortgages saw their assets decline in value and rushed to foreclose the loans. This ultimately intensified into a global financial crisis with broad implications.

Kashkari played important roles in several episodes of the crisis. He led Treasury's participation in the Hope Now Alliance, a mortgage industry initiative coordinated by the federal government that aimed to reduce foreclosures by modifying loan terms on a loan-by-loan basis. In March 2008 he represented Treasury at negotiations that led ultimately to the federally sponsored takeover and rescue of the investment bank Bear Stearns by JPMorgan Chase. He was in charge of Treasury's (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to create a market in the U.S. for covered bonds, whose value would continue to be guaranteed by the issuing bank after the bank had sold them. He also worked closely with Paulson on Treasury's takeover of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of American International Group on September 16.

In March 2008, Kashkari began to worry that, if the Bush administration never received the authority it needed to deal with the growing crisis, the next administration would blame them for everything wrong in the economy. Paulson scoffed at this idea, particularly Kashkari's speculation that Barack Obama, then a candidate in that year's presidential election, would win the presidency and use the crisis to ride to popularity just as former President Ronald Reagan had following the Iran hostage crisis.

TARP

In early 2008, Paulson directed Kashkari and fellow Treasury aide Phillip Swagel