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Richard Fisher | |
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| President of theFederal Reserve Bank of Dallas | |
| In office April 4, 2005 – March 19, 2015 | |
| Preceded by | Helen Holcomb (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Helen Holcomb (Acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1949 (age 75–76) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Nancy Miles Collins (divorced) Missy Bailey (2017–present) |
| Children | 4, includingMiles |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Hertford College, Oxford Stanford University (MBA) |
Richard Welton Fisher[1] (born 1949)[2] is the former President and CEO of theFederal Reserve Bank of Dallas, having served in that post from April 2005 to 2015. He is a Senior Advisor toBarclays Plc, a British bank holding company, a Director ofPepsiCo, and a Senior Contributing Editor forCNBC. From 2011 to 2017, he served on theHarvard Board of Overseers.
A first-generation American, Fisher was born inLos Angeles, but grew up in Mexico. His father was Australian, while his mother was South African, of Norwegian descent.[3] Following graduation fromAdmiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida, he attended theUnited States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland from 1967 to 1969, before transferring toHarvard University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1971. From 1972 to 1973, he studiedLatin American studies atHertford College, Oxford. Completing his education in 1975, he earned anM.B.A. from theGraduate School of Business atStanford University.[4]
Moving toNew York City, Fisher joined theWall Street investment bankBrown Brothers, Harriman and Company, where he was assistant to former Undersecretary of the TreasuryRobert Roosa,[5] specializing infixed income andforeign exchange markets. From 1978 to 1979, he served as Special Assistant toSecretaryW. Michael Blumenthal at theUnited States Department of the Treasury, where he worked on issues relating to the dollar crisis. Returning to Brown Brothers, he established and managed the bank's Dallas-based Texas operations.
Leaving Brown Brothers in 1987, Fisher created Fisher Capital Management, and a separate funds-management firm, Fisher Ewing Partners, managing both firms until 1997. In 1993, he was a candidate in thespecial election for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas, which was vacated byLloyd Bentsen when the latter became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but took fifth place in a 21 candidate field behind State TreasurerKay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. SenatorBob Krueger, U.S. CongressmanJoe Barton, and U.S. CongressmanJack Fields.
The following year, Fisher was a candidate for the same U.S. Senate seat in theregularly scheduled election. Fisher came in second to former Texas Attorney GeneralJim Mattox in theDemocratic Party primary, but won the ensuing run-off election. Fisher lost the general election in a landslide to incumbent RepublicanKay Bailey Hutchison having been defeated 61% to 38%.
From 1997 to 2001, Fisher served asDeputy U.S. Trade Representative, serving under U.S. Trade RepresentativeCharlene Barshefsky, where he was responsible for the implementation ofNAFTA, and negotiating a variety of trade agreements, including the bilateral accords admitting both thePeople's Republic of China andTaiwan to theWorld Trade Organization. From 2001 to 2005, he served as Vice Chairman ofKissinger McLarty Associates, a strategic advisory firm headed by former U.S. Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger and former White House Chief of StaffMack McLarty. He left the firm in April, 2005, when he was appointed as President of theFederal Reserve Bank of Dallas serving in that post until 2015.
Transcripts of the Federal Open Market Committee in May 2007 showed Fisher sounded the alarm on the housing crisis even as many of his peers on the Committee expressed doubts: "On the housing front, I have been bearish—more bearish than anybody at this table. I am more concerned than I was before. We can go through the numbers, but I think it is best expressed by the CEO of one of the five big builders, who said that in March he was arguing internally with his board that the headlines were worse than reality and now reality is worse than the headlines."[6]
At the Dallas Fed in 2013, Fisher was outspoken in opposition to the wayquantitative easing was being pursued byFed chairBen Bernanke and the board.[7]
As U.S. equity markets began to unravel barely two weeks after Treasury SecretaryJanet Yellen's December 18 rate hike announcement, Fisher came out on CNBC decrying the Federal Open Market Committee's decision to launch QE3 saying that he, "voted against doing QE3" and that QE3 was, "one step too far."[8] Fisher is also a member of Washington D.C.–based think tank theInter-American Dialogue.[9]
In April 2020, GovernorGreg Abbott named Fisher to the Strike Force to Open Texas—a group "tasked with finding safe and effective ways to slowly reopen the state" amid theCOVID-19 pandemic in Texas.[10]
Fisher is divorced from Nancy Miles Collins, the daughter of former U.S. CongressmanJames M. Collins.[11] They have four children, including their son, actorMiles Fisher. He married Missy Bailey in July 2017.[12]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromTexas (Class 1) 1994 | Succeeded by Gene Kelly |
| Other offices | ||
| Preceded by | President of theFederal Reserve Bank of Dallas 2005–2015 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
