President Donald Trump is ending Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s leadership of the U.S. central bank after just one term at the helm of the institution she has led since 2014. She is the first Fed chair since G. William Miller in 1979 not to be reappointed to another four-year term. Former Fed chairmen Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were all nominated by a president of one party and re-nominated by a president from the other.
Trump plans to pick Fed Governor Jerome Powell to replace Yellen when her term expires at the helm of the bank in February, four people familiar with the decision said Wednesday. A formal announcement is due Thursday, and the nominee requires Senate confirmation. Yellen has presided over almost four straight years of mediocre economic growth and a jobless rate that has steadily fallen even as she directed the gradual exit from crisis-era policies.