US Treasury changes course on Tarp CIO

The US Treasury yesterday unveiled James Lambright as interim chief investment officer for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), after changing its original decision to appoint undersecretary Reuben Jeffery.

Lambright, previously president of the Export-Import Bank, will provide support for treasury secretary Henry Paulson and Neel Kashkari, interim assistant secretary for the office of financial stability.

Only last week, in a meeting before the Institute of International Bankers in Washington DC on October 13, Kashkari unveiled a list of new appointments including Jeffery as interim chief investment officer.

However, Paulson and secretary of state Condoleeza Rice insisted that Jeffery remain in his current position as under-secretary of economic, energy and agricultural affairs, at the State Department.

The secretaries want him to participate in the upcoming meeting of leaders of the G-20 countries to discuss the global financial markets, scheduled to take place in Washington DC on November 15.

Last week, Kashkari named a number of other people taking up interim positions at the office of financial stability, which manages the Tarp facility.

Tom Bloom, previously chief financial officer at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, will fill the same role for Tarp, while Jonathan Fiechter, who had been deputy director of the monetary and capital markets department at the International Monetary Fund, will take the post of interim chief risk officer.

Donna Gambrell will join as interim chief of homeownership preservation from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund where she is a director. Don Hammond, deputy director of the operations and payment systems division at the Federal Reserve Bank, will become interim chief compliance officer.

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