PIMCO has appointed a five member-strong global advisory board including two ex-central bankers and a former UK prime minister.
Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve chairman during the financial crisis, will chair the group. He became an advisor to the Newport Beach, California-based firm in April this year.
Joining Bernanke are former European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet, ex-UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former CIO of Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Ng Kok Song, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy for the US State Department between 2009 and 2011. All held top level decision-making positions during the financial crisis.
Trichet led the ECB between 2003 and 2011, overseeing its immediate response to the global banking meltdown. He orchestrated a short-lived attempt to raise the currency bloc’s core interest rate despite critical debt problems in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. Mario Draghi replaced him at the height of the Eurozone crisis.
Gordon Brown served as the UK’s chancellor of the Exchequer, responsible for economic policy, for 10 years until succeeding Tony Blair as prime minister in 2007.
During Brown’s tenure in government, he claimed his policies would “end boom and bust,” but later backtracked. He retired as a member of parliament earlier this year.
Ng Kok Song led GIC’s investment team from 2007 to 2013. Earlier in his career, he acted as founding chairman of the Singapore International Monetary Exchange from 1983 to 1987.
Anne-Marie Slaughter is president and CEO of think-tank New America, and professor emerita of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. For two years until February 2011, she was director of policy planning for the US State Department.
PIMCO CIO Dan Ivascyn said the quintet was an “unrivalled team” that would provide “a valuable input to our investment process.” The group will meet several times a year, PIMCO said in a statement, as well as attending the group’s annual forums.
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