Education Resources

Dennis P. Lockhart became the 14th president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on March 1, 2007

Lockhart brings to the Atlanta Fed a blend of financial and academic experience that spans the globe. Immediately before joining the Reserve Bank, he taught courses in international business and finance at Georgetown University and served as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University.

From 1971 to 1988, Lockhart held a variety of international and domestic positions with Citibank/Citicorp (now Citigroup), which included assignments in the Middle East, Latin America, New York, and Atlanta. While in Atlanta between 1978 and 1986, he served as Citibank's senior corporate officer for the Southeast and was active in educational and civic affairs. From 1988 to 2001, he served as president of Heller International Group Inc. Subsequently, Lockhart served as a managing partner at the private equity firm Zephyr Management in New York City.

Education brings resilience
Since joining the Atlanta Fed, Lockhart has spoken publicly about the importance of education and training to the region's economy. In particular, during an August speech to the Southern Governors Association, he said that education and retraining are critical to building people’s resilience to the competitive pressures of a global economy.

Lockhart noted that swift economic change presents challenges to policymakers who seek to attract business investment. These challenges pose an important policy question about "how states [can] encourage development of workers with high aptitude and, therefore, help provide a highly adaptable workforce," he said. "Those involved in promoting economic development at the state level apply policies aimed at achieving a resilient workforce characterized by well-developed vocational aptitudes built on foundation skills, especially a capacity to learn new things throughout a career."

By Charles Davidson, staff writer, Atlanta