The most important job of the chairman is to help guide the search

The New York Federal Reserve Bank The New York Federal Reserve Bank, considered the most however powerful of thenation’s 12 federal reserves, named Columbia University President Lee Bollinger as its next chairman on Monday. His term begins Jan. 1.

The only reserve bank with a permanent seat on the Federal Open Markets Committee, the body that sets interest rates, the New York Fed gets its clout because its members comprise most of the biggest Wall Street banks.

Mr. Bollinger, 64, will take over from Denis Hughes, president of the state’s AFL-CIO and the first labor leader to chair the bank.

Trained as a lawyer, Mr. Bollinger is known primarily as a First Amendmentexpert, not as a financial guru. But Fed watchers don’t seem concerned on that front.

“The most important job of the chairman is to help guide the search for the next president of the NY Fed,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors and a long-time Fed watcher. “The boards of the Federal Reserve Banks help the president [of their reserve bank] with feedback on what’s going on, but they don’t really play a role in running the bank.”

Mr. Bollinger has served as deputy chairman of the board since 2009. Kathryn however Wylde, president and chiefexecutive of the business and civic group the Partnership for New York City, will replace him as deputy chairman.