Türkiye's newly appointed Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has met Hafize Gaye Erkan, a senior finance executive in the U.S., who is said to be considered a potential candidate to become the new central bank governor, media reports claimed Monday.
Şimşek's meeting with Erkan was held in the capital Ankara, a day after she arrived in Türkiye from the U.S., as per reports by local media and news agencies, Bloomberg and Reuters, citing senior officials with knowledge of the matter
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is set to meet her soon to discuss the possible role, the sources said.
The meetings come just over a week after Erdoğan won reelection that extends his rule into the third decade and as he reshuffles his economic team.
Analysts have suggested that the appointment of Şimşek could signal the government's departure from economic policies centered around low-interest rates.
The government has urged monetary stimulus over the last several years, aiming to achieve price stability by slashing borrowing costs, boosting exports and flipping chronic current account deficits to surpluses.
The second source said Erkan was one of "a few candidates" to succeed the current Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) Şahap Kavcıoğlu, who spearheaded the easing drive that saw the authority slashing policy rate to 8.5% from 19% in 2021.
A former co-CEO at First Republic Bank and managing director at Goldman Sachs, Erkan could not be immediately reached for comment.
After he was appointed to the new Cabinet over the weekend, Şimşek, who is highly regarded by financial markets, said the country has no choice but to return to "rational ground" to ensure predictability in the economy.
Şimşek, 56, won the markets' confidence during terms as finance minister and deputy prime minister between 2009 and 2018.
He over the weekend stressed the importance of lowering inflation to single digits, increasing predictability and accelerating the structural transformation.
He said fiscal policies and structural reforms would support Türkiye's central bank to help lower inflation.
Erkan's policy leanings are unclear given she has no formal monetary policy experience in her career spanning Wall Street and U.S. corporate boardrooms, and her Ivy League education includes a financial engineering Ph.D. from Princeton.
She is respected in New York's financial industry and "considered tough, smart and effective," said Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization where Erkan once served as a board director.
"She is certainly not someone who can be pushed around, but she also can disagree without being disagreeable," Wylde said.
In her early 40s, she would if appointed represent a new generation atop Türkiye's central bank. Erkan would be the country's fifth central bank chief in four years.
She was at First Republic from 2014-2021 in roles that included president, board member and chief investment officer, before she resigned in a surprise move more than a year ago.
This year, the San Francisco-based lender became the largest U.S. bank to fail since 2008 after it was seized by regulators and sold to JPMorgan.
Erkan is a director on the board of Marsh McLennan, a Fortune 500 firm, and was named CEO at Greystone, a real estate finance and investment firm, last year.