UK names former Citi economist Mann to Bank of England’s MPC

Britain’s finance ministry said Catherine Mann, until recently the global chief economist at Citibank, will become the newest member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, and that Jonathan Haskel had been reappointed.

Mann’s three-year stint on the nine-member panel – which sets interest rates and oversees the BoE’s 895 billion-pound ($1.24 trillion) bond-buying programme – will begin on Sept. 1 to replace Gertjan Vlieghe who is stepping down after six years.

“I am very happy to announce the appointment of Dr. Catherine L. Mann,” British finance minister Rishi Sunak said. “Her breadth of experience across policy, research and the private sector will be immensely useful to the MPC.”

Before her three years at Citibank, Mann served as chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development between 2014 and 2017. She was an economist at the U.S. Federal Reserve between 1984 and 1997.

She joins the British central bank as it tries to steer the world’s fifth-biggest economy away from the coronavirus crisis with record levels of monetary stimulus, without triggering a sustained jump in inflation.

Mann’s appointment will increase the number of women serving on the MPC to two, as she joins Silvana Tenreyro.

Haskel, an economics professor at Imperial College Business School, will serve a second three-year term, also starting on Sept. 1.

($1 = 0.7192 pounds)