Lessons Learned: Anthony Dowd

Anthony Dowd was an investment banker when former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker recruited him during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) to be his chief of staff for the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB). As chairman of the PERAB, Volcker proposed what would become known as the Volcker Rule, a series of guardrails meant to curb banks’ involvement in proprietary trading and investing in private equity or hedge funds; they were adopted in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. When Chairman Volcker founded the Volcker Alliance in 2013, Dowd became a director and its first treasurer. The alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on the effective execution of public policies and on helping rebuild public trust in government. Dowd remains a director and served as interim president of the alliance in 2015–16. In 2017, he became president and CEO of Fairfield-Maxwell Limited, an industrial holding company. This Lesson Learned is based on an interview held in January 2025.