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Google’s Alphabet just appointed a former Federal Reserve official to its board

Roger Ferguson gets to help put money into moonshots.

by Mark Bergen
Children’s Defense Fund’s Beat The Odds Gala
Children’s Defense Fund’s Beat The Odds Gala
Monica Schipper / Getty

Alphabet, the holding company above Google and Google’s ambitious offshoots, has named finance and insurance veteran Roger Ferguson to its board.

Ferguson, an economist, is currently president and CEO of insurance giant TIAA. From 1997 to 2006, he sat on the governing board of the Federal Reserve; for seven of those year he was its vice chairman.

He will now serve on Alphabet’s audit committee, giving Alphabet, whose leadership (in particular its CFO) has been hatching plans for managing expenses at the conglomerate’s more unconventional enterprises, another person to help do that. In February, Alphabet hired another finance veteran as its corporate controller.

Alphabet’s board is also Google’s board, and Ferguson will be the first black man to join it. With his appointment, he’s getting a $1 million equity grant, according to a filing.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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