CANADIAN Mark Carney becomes the first non-British citizen to govern the Bank of England in its 319-year history when he takes the helm on Monday.
Mr Carney was hand-picked by Chancellor George Osborne to head the Bank – and become the most powerful unelected official in Britain.
The 48-year-old will lead an institution now responsible for financial stability and keeping Britain’s banks on an even keel – as well as its main task of monetary policy.
Mr Carney arrives from the Bank of Canada, where he is credited with helping the Canadian economy recover faster from the downturn than any other developed major nation.
While Britain is struggling to establish growth, Canada has recovered all of the output it lost during its 2008/09 recession, while creating 480,000 more jobs.
Mr Carney’s track record prompted Mr Osborne to overlook favourites, including Bank veteran Paul Tucker and Adair Turner, the former chairman of City watchdog, for the governorship.
Mr Carney, who will get an £874,000 pay package – including a £5,000-a-week housing allowance – inherits a venerable institution which has expanded rapidly in recent years.
The Bank’s workforce has almost doubled to 3,500 from about 1,800 in 2008.
Mr Carney has already started shaking up the Bank, recently appointing a senior female banker to the new role of chief operating officer.
Charlotte Hogg, the head of retail at Spanish-owned lender Santander UK and the daughter of former Conservative minister Douglas Hogg, will take responsibility for all day-to-day management of the Bank.
Mr Carney will serve a five-year term and only agreed to take the job after the term was cut from eight years – partly to reduce disruption to his children.
The ice hockey fan studied at Harvard and Oxford universities and spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before becoming deputy governor of Canada’s central bank in 2003 and governor in 2008.
He takes the reins at the Bank of England as Britain’s economy emerges slowly from a five-year slump.
But his arrival comes with financial markets struggling to come to terms with the prospect of central bank support tapering off – especially in the USA – with economic data beginning to show signs of improvement and policymakers anxious about driving up inflation.
Mr Carney succeeds Sir Mervyn King, who ends his Threadneedle Street reign having earned a formidable reputation for monetary policy after a decade at the helm.
Sir Mervyn has helped steer the country through the financial meltdown that brought the banking system to its knees and hands over the reins with the economic recovery on track.
Previously chief economist and deputy governor, he was a key player in bringing in the Bank’s inflation targeting remit following its independence to set interest rates in 1997.
