Who will be the next Bank of Israel governor?
With Dr. Karnit Flug unlikely to be granted a second term, Globes looks at the leading candidates to succeed her in November.
With Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon reportedly opposed to Flug continuing as governor of the Bank of Israel for a second term when her fiveyear term ends in November, Globes looks at the leading candidates to succeed her. These candidates include Michal Abadi-Boiangiu, Eugene Kandel, Rony Hizkiyahu and Zvi Eckstein.
The Finance Ministry will be eager not to repeat the embarrassment surrounding the appointment of Flug in 2013, when it took three months to appoint her to succeed Stanley Fischer. First, Jacob Frenkel was appointed but withdrew after Haaretz revealed that he was allegedly involved in stealing gifts from a duty free store at Hong Kong International Airport, and then Leo Leiderman was appointed but pulled out for personal reasons.
This time it might make sense to set up a search committee.
Abadi-Boiangiu was mentioned as a candidate last time by then-Finance Minister Yair Lapid when she was serving as accountant-general. Since then she has become chairperson of Psagot Investment House Ltd. and sources close to her say she has been very satisfied by the move from the public to the private sector and is not eager to return to the civil service. Therefore, discussing her as a candidate could be purely theoretical.
A big advantage of Abadi-Boiangiu is that she has worked closely and successfully with both Kahlon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the past.
Abadi-Boiangiu’s successor as accountant-general is Hizkiyahu, who from 2006 served for four years as supervisor of banks during the global financial crisis. He is considered very close to Kahlon who appointed him accountant-general 18 months ago.
Eugene Kandel was reportedly offered the job as governor five years ago when he was chairman of Israel’s National Economic Council, but he turned it down. He is currently CEO of Start-Up National Central and a professor of economics and finance at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Another potential candidate is Zvi Eckstein, a former deputy governor at the Bank of Israel. He is currently dean of the Arison School of Business and Tiomkin School of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. He was shortlisted last time to be governor of the Bank of Israel but was reportedly vetoed by Netanyahu.