Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg will retire from the agency, effective Jan. 19, he told employees Tuesday.
“It has been the greatest honor of my career to serve at the FDIC. I have especially valued the privilege of working with the dedicated public servants who carry out the critically important mission of this agency,” he wrote in an email later posted on X.
The retirement date comes one day before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office.
Gruenberg has been a constant at the FDIC since 2005 — the longest-tenured board member in the agency’s history. He’s served as FDIC chair twice — from 2012 to 2018 and again from early 2023 until now. But he’s been acting chair several times.
His latest stint atop the regulator has been marred by accusations that the agency fostered a culture that tolerated rampant sexual harassment and retaliatory behavior. Several lawmakers sought Gruenberg’s resignation after a November 2023 Wall Street Journal report detailed dozens of current and former employees’ accounts of sexual harassment.
The FDIC agreed to let law firm Cleary Gottlieb audit the agency’s culture. Less than two weeks after the audit was published, Gruenberg agreed to resign — conditionally. He said in May he’d step down once the Senate confirmed his replacement.
The maneuver had political overtones, as Republican Travis Hill, the FDIC’s vice chair, would have ascended to the agency’s top role if Gruenberg were to have resigned immediately. That would have endangered a Democratic-led effort to boost capital requirements at the nation’s largest banks — which would have required the FDIC’s green light but may not have received it without a Democratic majority on the FDIC board. (Without Gruenberg, the board would have been split 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans.) The FDIC board failed to sign off on the capital-requirements revamp anyway.
The Biden administration nominated Christy Goldsmith Romero, a commissioner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to serve as FDIC chair. And although her hearing came and went without major objections, the Senate did not vote to confirm her.
Gruenberg’s pending departure clears the way for Trump to nominate his own candidate to lead the FDIC. Presumably, Hill is on a shortlist for that role.
Gruenberg said Tuesday he had informed President Joe Biden and the FDIC of his decision.
“Over the coming weeks I hope to have the opportunity to speak with many of you and thank you personally for your service,” he told employees Tuesday. “But for now allow me to extend my gratitude to all of you.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, a persistent critic of both Gruenberg and the FDIC’s response to toxic-culture allegations, wrote on X, in response to Gruenberg’s retirement email: “You didn’t quit, you’re getting fired.”
