Backgrounder: New U.S. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Jerome Powell took office as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on Monday, for a four-year term.

Powell, the 16th person to hold the position, was nominated by President Donald Trump in November 2017. The U.S. Senate approved the nomination in late January.

The new Fed head faces an immediate challenge from the wobbly market, as U.S. stocks opened sharply lower Monday after a heavy sell-off Friday.

One of the market worries is that the Fed, under Powell, will accelerate its interest rate hikes, undermining the momentum of a bullish market. Economists widely expect the Fed to hike interest rates three times this year, with the first coming in March.

Although Powell has indicated he is in favor of retaining the Dodd-Frank reforms which came after the financial crisis, in January 2017 he urged the U.S. Congress to rewrite the Volcker Rule, which restricts banks from proprietary banking, to benefit smaller banks.

Powell, born in 1953 in Washington, D.C., also serves as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the system's principal monetary policymaking body.

In 2012, he was appointed to the Fed's Board of Governors to fill an unexpired term. He was reappointed to the board and sworn in on June 16, 2014 for a term to end on Jan. 31, 2028.

Prior to his appointment to the board, Powell was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he focused on federal and state fiscal issues.

From 1997 through 2005, he was a partner at private equity and asset management company the Carlyle Group.

He served as an assistant secretary and as undersecretary of the Treasury under President George Bush, responsible for policy on financial institutions, the Treasury debt market, and related areas.

Prior to joining the administration, he worked as a lawyer and investment banker in New York City.

As a former investment banker, Powell will be the first Fed chairman in 40 years who does not have a PhD in economics.

He received a bachelor degree in politics from Princeton University and a law degree from Georgetown University. While at Georgetown, he was editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Journal.

His predecessor Janet Yellen is the first chair of the Fed since World War II to serve only one four-year term, and also the first woman to hold that position.

Yellen is entitled to remain on the Fed's board of governors until 2024. Enditem