W&L Alumnus Appointed Secretary General of the Financial Stability Board John W. Schindler will serve a five-year renewable contract with the organization that promotes international financial stability.

By Brian Laubscher
February 13, 2023

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) announced recently that Washington and Lee alumnus John W. Schindler III ’94 has been appointed as the new FSB secretary general. He replaced Dietrich Domanski, who held the position for the previous five years.

“I had thought that someday secretary general would be a great opportunity, and I was surprised when I learned in June that the position would be open,” said Schindler. “I thought to myself, ‘what good fortune,’ and decided it was worth pursuing.”

In his role with the FSB, Schindler is responsible for leading the secretariat of the FSB, which supports the activities of the FSB, facilitates cooperation among members, and is responsible for the smooth operation of the FSB. Schindler was appointed through an open recruitment process that began in June 2022 and was led by Klaas Knot, chair of the FSB and president of the Dutch Central Bank.

“This position represents such an amazing opportunity for me, but it certainly wasn’t something I was expecting,” said Schindler. “I loved the Federal Reserve Board and I found it difficult to leave, but the FSB is an international organization established by the G20 and that global reach is very motivating. We are charged with ensuring the stability of the global financial system, which affects every person around the world. It’s hard to not be motivated by that.”

Schindler, who earned degrees in economics and mathematics from W&L, had been serving as a senior associate director in the U.S. Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Financial Stability. He had worked with the Federal Reserve Board since 2000 and worked extensively on a broad range of financial stability issues at the Fed and with the FSB in recent years. During the 2008 global financial crisis, he was seconded to the U.S. Treasury Department as Chief International Economist.

Schindler went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and he also serves as a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.

The FSB was established by the G20 following the global financial crisis to coordinate at the international level the work of national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies and develop and promote the implementation of effective regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies in the interest of financial stability. It brings together national authorities responsible for financial stability in 24 countries and jurisdictions, international financial institutions, sector-specific international groupings of regulators and committees of central bank experts.

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