Bank of England names Huw Pill as new chief economist

The Bank of England has hired former Goldman Sachs and European Central Bank veteran Huw Pill as its new chief economist.

Mr Pill will start in the role on September 6, replacing Andy Haldane, who announced in April he was leaving the Bank after 32 years to head up the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Mr Pill will also become executive director of monetary analysis and will sit on the Bank’s interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

The appointment sees him return to the Bank, where he worked as an economist in the early 1990s.

Since then his career has seen him hold a series of senior posts at the European Central Bank, before becoming chief European economist at investment bank Goldman Sachs and most recently senior lecturer at Harvard Business School – a role he has held since 2018.

Bank Governor Andrew Bailey said: “Huw will make a major contribution to monetary policy – and to the broader work of the Bank.

“I greatly look forward to working with him.”

Mr Pill will report to the Bank’s deputy governor for monetary policy, Ben Broadbent.

Mr Broadbent said Mr Pill’s “breadth of experience across monetary policy, economic research and financial markets will be invaluable to the Bank and the MPC”.

Mr Pill said: “It is a great privilege to rejoin the Bank and have the opportunity to contribute to the work of the MPC and the Bank more broadly at what remains a challenging time for monetary policy and central banking.”

He becomes the latest former Goldman Sachs economist to join the Bank, with Mr Broadbent also having worked there, while former Bank governor Mark Carney spent 13 years as an investment banker at the US group.

Mr Pill studied economics for an undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford before earning his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1995.