No more. Newly appointed Rachel Lomax will occupy the most powerful position a woman has ever held at the central bank: deputy governor for monetary policy. Lomax will take the post vacated by Mervyn King, who succeeds Sir Eddie George as governor on July 1.
This isn’t the first glass ceiling that the 57-year-old economist has shattered. During more than 25 years at the U.K. Treasury, Lomax -- a Cambridge graduate and native of Wales -- served as principal private secretary to then-chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and also as deputy economic adviser. Asked once how she thrived in that male bastion, she said, “If you stick around an institution like the Treasury for long enough, they forget you are a woman.” In the past year Lomax was permanent secretary -- the highest-ranking civil servant -- at the Department of Transport after serving in a similar role at the Department of Work and Pensions.
“She’s an extremely intelligent and energetic and effective official,” says Sir Alan Budd, a former member of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee who had Lomax as his deputy when he was the Treasury’s chief economic adviser.
