FDIC names two veteran staffers to oversee, manage insurance fund, research, financial operations

A new manager of the $123 billion fund that insures bank deposits and a new leader for the corporate financial operations of the agency that houses the fund were announced Wednesday.

Patrick Mitchell will serve as director of the Division of Insurance and Research (DIR) and Donna Saulnier will be director of the Division of Finance (DOF) for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the agency said in a release.

As DIR director, the FDIC said, Mitchell will supervise the FDIC’s economic, banking, and policy research program and management of the agency’s Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), the fund that insures deposits of banks and savings associations.

The FDIC said DIR provides comprehensive statistical information on banking; identifies and analyzes emerging risks; conducts research that supports deposit insurance, banking policy, and risk assessment; addresses global financial issues of importance to the deposit insurance system; assesses the adequacy of the deposit insurance fund; maintains an effective and fair risk-based premium system; and conducts economic analysis for FDIC rulemaking.

Mitchell has served previously as the deputy director for the Deposit Insurance and Risk Analysis area within DIR and as associate director for Asset Management and chief of the Large Bank Pricing Section at the FDIC, the agency said.

Before his FDIC service, he was a senior portfolio manager with Ambac Assurance Corporation and a credit analyst with Barclays Capital, the agency said. He is a CFA charterholder, earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has a B.S. in Economics (Mathematical) from the United States Military Academy. He also attended the Senior Managers in Government program at the Harvard Kennedy School, the agency said.

As DOF director, the FDIC said, Saulnier will have direct responsibility for all agency financial operations. Those include: providing efficient and timely financial reporting; oversight of the DIF; coordinating the FDIC’s strategic and annual planning processes; overseeing workload and staffing analysis, budget formulation and execution, and cost management processes; developing and implementing agency accounting, tax, and travel policies; and managing the agency’s treasury, investment, cash management, and deposit insurance assessment invoicing and collection processes. The agency said she will report directly to Bret Edwards, deputy to the chairman and chief financial officer.

She previously served as the deputy director, treasurer, and manager of the Assessment Operations Section in an agency career that has spanned almost 32 years.

Saulnier holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with an accounting major. She is also a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, she successfully completed both the Federal Government’s Executive Leadership Program and the Women’s Executive Leadership Series at the Brookings Institute.

FDIC Appoints Two Agency Veterans to Lead Its Division of Finance and Division of Insurance and Research