Michele Bullock yesterday was named as the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) first female deputy governor, propelling her to the front of the line to succeed RBA Governor Philip Lowe.
Bullock was appointed to a five-year term as the central bank’s No. 2 official and is to take up her role immediately, statements from the treasurer and the RBA said.
“Bullock will become the first female deputy governor of the RBA in their 62-year history,” Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in announcing her appointment.
Bullock replaces Guy Debelle, who resigned for a job in the private sector.
Bullock is the most experienced of the bank’s five assistant governors and was widely seen as a front-runner for the role.
She was assistant governor for currency and business services from 2010 to 2016, before taking on her most recent position overseeing the financial system.
She is working with a group of other central banks and the Bank for International Settlements to help develop prototypes for a common digital currencies platform.
“Michele Bullock is a strong appointment,” said John Hawkins, who previously worked at the RBA, Australian Treasury and the Bank for International Settlements. “With increasing discussion of issues such as the impact of decentralized finance and the question of whether the [central] bank should issue its own digital currency, her experience would be very useful.”
“Bullock’s fairly quick appointment suggests that the RBA did not look externally, continuing a long-established tradition of promoting from within,” said Su-Lin Ong, head of Australian economic and fixed-income strategy at the Royal Bank of Canada.
Ong said that unlike previous deputy governors, Bullock has not spent time overseeing economics.
Lowe pledged to improve gender equality shortly after taking the helm at the RBA in late 2016 after being challenged by his then 15-year-old daughter about the dearth of females in senior roles.
Under Lowe, the RBA has made progress in filling more jobs with women.
It has a longer-term goal of 40 percent women in managerial positions, from 34.4 percent now.
The gender pay gap at the RBA has declined to 14.5 percent under Lowe, compared with the nationwide disparity of 22.8 percent.
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