Kevin Warsh, chairman of the US Federal Reserve nominee for US President Donald Trump, is sworn in throughout a Senate Banking, Housing, and City Affairs Committee affirmation listening to in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, April 21, 2026.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
It is formally “Chairman” Kevin Warsh, not “chair.”
The Federal Reserve web site now lists Warsh as “chairman,” not “chair,” reversing the previous 12 years when his predecessors Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell each selected to be known as “chair.”
Earlier than Yellen, the time period “chairman” was used completely.
No regulation or regulation governs what a chair is named, leaving it as much as private choice. The Federal Reserve Act references “chairman” of the Board of Governors and “vice chairman.” It even names “vice chairman of supervision,” a place not created till the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Road Reform and Client Safety Act.
The Fed is a physique created by Congress, and in 2021, beneath the management of then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Home adopted gender impartial language for its official proceedings. It modified “chairman” to “chair,” “seamen” to “seafarers,” and gender-specific language akin to “daughter” and “sister” to “baby” and “sibling.”
The present Home adopted that very same gender-neutral language in its guidelines package deal. However Republicans have been crucial of such adjustments and the broader variety, fairness and inclusion motion. On Home particular person and committee web sites, which aren’t ruled by the Home guidelines, the phrase “chairman” seems to be for use nearly completely. The identical is true for the Senate. So Chairman Warsh will testify earlier than Chairman Tim Scott within the Senate and Chairman French Hill within the Home when he does his semi-annual testimony.
A 2024 evaluation by Bloomberg discovered that 185 of the S&P 500 firms used gender-neutral language, triple what it had been simply 4 years earlier. However the greatest banks, together with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley used “chairmen.” At Citigroup, Jane Fraser is “chair,” however so was her predecessor, John C. Dugan.
Alicia Syrett, founding father of Chairs & Leads, a community of chairs and administrators, and its prior group, Madam Chair, did not assume a lot of the change.
“I personally wouldn’t learn an excessive amount of into Chairman Warsh’s title,” she mentioned. “I believe it is his private determination to decide on between “chair” or “chairman” primarily based on his choice simply as a lot as a feminine within the function may determine to make use of “chairwoman” as a substitute of “chair” primarily based on her choice.”
