President Donald Trump will nominate regional bank executive Jelena McWilliams to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the White House said Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Ms. McWilliams has worked as a lawyer at the Federal Reserve and on the Republican staff of the Senate Banking Committee. She is currently chief legal officer of Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp. The nomination moves Trump closer to rounding out a team that can carry out his promise to revisit financial regulations adopted under President Barack Obama. The FDIC is currently led by an Obama nominee, Martin Gruenberg, who has pushed for strict rules on large Wall Street banks and warned against deregulation in a Nov. 14 speech. Mr. Gruenberg’s term as chairman ended Nov. 29. The White House said Ms. McWilliams has political science and law degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and practiced corporate and securities law before entering public service in 2007, serving three years at the Fed and then six years in the Senate. At the Senate banking panel, she worked for Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), both of whom are skeptical of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law and the resulting rules implemented under the Obama administration.
