Key players shaping economic policy during the Obama administration

These leaders have been a driving force behind the nation's economic policies since the financial crisis of 2008.

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President Obama is launching a new economic advisory council focused on job creation and competitiveness and has named General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt as its head. Immelt will lead the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The council is replacing the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which Obama created two years ago to help guide the administration's response to the recession.

Yuriko Nakao / REUTERS

Austan Goolsbee took the place of Christine Romer as head of the Council of Economic Advisers in September. Obama has long looked to Goolsbee -- a liberal economist whose academic research has been focused on the new economy, government policy, taxes and technology -- for guidance.

Karin Cooper / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was a key architect of the sweeping financial regulatory overhaul legislation that passed in July 2010. Prior to his appointment to President Obama's Cabinet in 2008, he served as the New York Federal Reserve Bank president. In that role, he worked closely with then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to devise responses to critical events of the financial crisis.

Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

Sheila Bair is chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In the wake of the financial crisis, she has been a fierce advocate of directing more assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure.

Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg

Jacob "Jack" Lew has been the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget since November. Lew, who replaced Peter Orszag, held the same job in the Clinton administration, and Obama has praised him for helping to balance the federal budget in the 1990s.

Ron Sachs / Via Bloomberg

As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in 2010, Rep. Barney Frank, (D-Mass.) shepherded the financial regulatory overhaul bill through the House. After its passage, Frank, right, called the bill a "very good bill" and said: "This bill got better at every stage of the process. ...I believe we have a piece of legislation that's going to show its merit."

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

On Jan. 7, 2011, President Obama named Gene Sperling director of the National Economic Council, replacing Larry Summers. Sperling has played a varied role since January 2009 in his post as a counselor to Geithner, participating in some of the central debates that helped shaped the Obama administration's economic policies and ongoing response to the financial crisis.

Ben S. Bernanke has served as chairman of the Federal Reserve since 2006. Bernanke has won praise in some corners for the unprecedented actions taken to contain the recession but has also received criticism from lawmakers for not preventing the financial meltdown that dragged the country into a downturn. Under his leadership, the Fed has cut short-term interest rates essentially to zero, deployed nearly $2 trillion to support mortgage lending, created innovative programs to support lending and undertaken stress tests of large banks that helped instill confidence.

Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg

Elizabeth Warren is the assistant to the president and special adviser to the secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren came to Washington from Harvard Law School in 2008 to keep tabs on how funds in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were being used. Since the financial regulatory overhaul bill was passed in 2010, Warren has played a pivotal role in setting up the consumer watchdog agency created by the overhaul.

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Gary Locke joined Obama's Cabinet as commerce secretary after two previous picks for the job, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson (D) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), withdrew themselves from consideration. Locke is a former governor of Washington.

Tatan Syuflana / AP

Before President Obama chose her to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro had been chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry's self-policing organization. Under the new financial regulation law, the SEC is required to issue 95 new rules governing a wide swath of the financial sector.

Jay Mallin / Bloomberg

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, right, is a former mayor of Dallas. "Trade can help us create jobs at home and encourage development abroad," Kirk has said.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Larry Summers announced in September that he would step down as President Obama's top economic strategist and head of the National Economic Council. Obama named Summers's replacement, Gene Sperling, on Jan. 7, 2011. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, has been an important mentor to Geithner.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Christina Romer was chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She resigned in August to return to her old job as an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Romer was instrumental in crafting the $862 billion economic stimulus package that Obama signed in 2009.

Brendan Smialowski / AP

Chris Dodd played an integral part in ushering the financial regulatory overhaul bill through the Senate when he was the Senate Banking Committee chairman in 2010. After a long career on Capitol Hill, Dodd announced in 2010 that he would not run for reelection.

Melina Mara / The Washington Post

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