Donna A. Tanoue, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, was elected Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council for a two-year term beginning April 1. Chairman Tanoue succeeds Dr. Laurence H. Meyer, member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Council also named OTS Director Ellen Seidman, as its new Vice Chairman.

The Council was created by the Federal Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978. It is composed of the heads of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and a Member of the Federal Reserve Board. The Act creating the Council directed it to promote uniformity with respect to examination and supervisory policies and procedures and to help rationalize the United States system of supervision of financial institutions.

Ms. Tanoue took office as the 17th Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on May 26, 1998. Before she became FDIC Chairman, Ms. Tanoue was a partner in the Hawaii law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, which she joined in 1987. From 1983 to 1987, Ms. Tanoue was Commissioner for Financial Institutions for the State of Hawaii. She received a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1981 and a B.A. from the University of Hawaii in 1977.