Mark Carney Is Preparing For Brexit & The Next Crisis

Mark Carney seemed revolutionary enough in 2013 when he became the first non-British citizen to be appointed governor of the Bank of England. But the 53-year-old has since had to contend with a much greater upset: the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union. In an interview last month, he revealed that he spends half his time preparing the financial system and economy for Brexit, which takes effect in March. Born in Canada's remote Northwest Territories and educated at a public school in Edmonton, Carney graduated from Harvard and Oxford before working at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the Canadian finance ministry. In early 2008 he became the eighth governor in the Bank of Canada's history, winning praise for his quick reaction as the financial crisis developed. He succeeded Mario Draghi as chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in 2011, becoming the point man on global financial system reform. At the Bank of England, Carney has juggled Brexit, negotiating new regulatory standards, and adapting the 324-year-old institution to its expanded supervisory responsibility. As the BOE's 120th governor, he says some disruption was in order. “You don't need an outsider all the time, but at the time it helped.”