US Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh announced on Thursday, July 9, 2026 the leadership appointments for five task forces examining the central bank's monetary policy approach and institutional reforms. Among the three Indian-origin leaders named to head key panels are former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, Harvard University economics professor Raj Chetty, and Microsoft XBOX Chief Executive Officer Asha Sharma. As reported by Business Standard, Warsh emphasized that "the goal is straightforward: To ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives in this consequential time." The appointments represent a significant expansion of the Fed's diversity in expertise, with the three Indian-origin leaders joining a roster that includes prominent global policymakers and economists. According to Reuters, the comprehensive review will examine monetary policy, communication, data analysis, and operational decision-making, reflecting expertise from academia, business, and technology sectors.
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh told Congress on July 14, 2026 that the central bank's 2020 approach to managing inflation was a mistake, pledging a policy "regime change" as he prepares for a second day of testimony before the Senate. Warsh added the Fed has no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation and vowed to restore the price stability mandate that the 2020 policy set aside. In 2020, under then-Chair Jerome Powell, the Fed adopted flexible average inflation targeting - instead of treating 2% as a hard ceiling, the framework let inflation run moderately above that target for a stretch, as long as it had spent time running below target beforehand. The framework also allowed the Fed to tolerate above-target inflation if doing so helped support employment, particularly for workers left behind in earlier recoveries. As reported by Reuters, Warsh testified before the House Financial Services Committee that using inflation policy to manage employment outcomes falls outside what the Fed should be doing, stating "That central bank wasn't the first central bank to ask for a little more inflation and end up with a lot more. It was a mistake."
Raghuram Rajan, who served as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013-2016 and previously held the position of Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003-2006, has been named to co-lead the Balance Sheet Policy task force. According to Reuters, this panel will "examine the costs, benefits, and institutional implications" for the Fed's balance sheet regime. Rajan is known for his prescient warnings about vulnerabilities in the global financial system before the 2008 financial crisis. His current role as Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University provides comprehensive expertise in monetary policy and financial stability. The panel will review how the Federal Reserve manages its balance sheet and asset holdings after years of quantitative easing and other unconventional monetary policies, alongside Karen Dynan, a Harvard University economist and former US Treasury chief economist, who previously spent 17 years at the Federal Reserve focusing on household finance and real estate economics, and Jeremy Stein, a former Federal Reserve Governor and Harvard economist who has studied U.S. Treasury market functioning following the Federal Reserve's large-scale bond purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. As reported by The Economic Times, Warsh indicated that any changes to the balance sheet would be deliberated and public, stating "It took us nearly 18 years to find our way into this balance sheet. We're holding a lot of long-term Treasury debt, long-term mortgage-backed securities. We won't be able to make changes overnight."
Raj Chetty, one of the world's leading economists known for research on economic mobility, inequality, education and public policy, has been appointed to co-lead the Data Task Force. As reported by Reuters, this group will examine how the Federal Reserve can improve the quality, timeliness and usefulness of economic data used in monetary policy decisions. Chetty serves as a professor at Harvard University and has led large-scale research projects using administrative data to study economic opportunity. His expertise in public economics and economic mobility will complement the panel's focus on the Fed's current monetary policy framework. The task force will work alongside Doug McMillon, former Walmart President and CEO, who brings decades of experience in retail operations and consumer behavior after leading the company through a major digital transformation, and Kevin Murphy, University of Chicago economist whose research spans inequality, unemployment, wages, addiction and the economics of health and longevity.
Asha Sharma, Indian-origin CEO of Microsoft's gaming unit XBOX, has been selected to lead the Productivity and Employment task force. According to Reuters, this appointment reflects the Federal Reserve's effort to bring technology-sector expertise into discussions about AI's impact on the economy. Born in India and raised in the US, Sharma has built her work experience with major tech firms including Meta, ecommerce platform Coupang, grocery delivery company Instacart, and home improvement retailer The Home Depot. Her panel co-chairs include Marc Andreessen, co-founder of investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose recent research explores how artificial intelligence could significantly boost productivity while creating major challenges for labour markets and inequality over the coming decades, and Stanford University professor Charles 'Chad' Jones. The task force will study how artificial intelligence and technological innovation are expected to affect productivity, employment and long-term economic growth, with the group receiving support from Federal Reserve staff but operating independently to provide research and feedback to the Federal Open Market Committee. As reported by Reuters, Sharma returned to Microsoft to oversee internal artificial intelligence development before taking charge of the company's gaming division, which recently announced significant workforce reductions as part of a restructuring.
The comprehensive review includes additional expert panels beyond the three Indian-origin leaders. Peter Fisher, a professor at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business and former U.S. Treasury under secretary for domestic finance during the George W. Bush administration, will lead the Communications Taskforce. Joining him are Arminio Fraga, founder and chairman of Gávea Investimentos and former president of Brazil's central bank, who helped steer Brazil's monetary policy following the country's hyperinflation era, and Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, who led the British central bank during the global financial crisis. The Inflation Framework Panel features Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, who previously chaired former President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and has advocated a more flexible interpretation of the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target, alongside Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Sargent of New York University, whose research examines inflation dynamics, fiscal policy and monetary policy interactions, and William White, senior fellow at Canada's C.D. Howe Institute and former economic adviser at the Bank for International Settlements, who has long questioned conventional inflation-targeting frameworks.
