New York Fed names insider as top bank regulator

Stiroh, a 15-year New York Fed employee, currently leads an internal group that analyzes global financial markets and economies and the role firms play in them. Previously co-head of market operations at the Fed bank, he begins his new role on Oct. 26.

As the government regulator closest to Wall Street, the New York Fed does much of the on-the-ground supervision and research for broader efforts such as the central bank's "stress tests" on banks, which Stiroh helped establish.

In the wake of financial crisis, the New York Fed has been criticized for a series of conflicts of interest and oversights, including a failure to head off risks that JPMorgan Chase & Co took in its massive "London Whale" bets in 2012.

Stiroh will oversee several teams of supervisors at banks and other Wall Street firms, including the so-called systemically important firms upon which the U.S. economy relies.

He left the New York Fed for a brief stint at Sanford Bernstein before returning in the depths of the financial crisis in late 2008. Stiroh has worked in the Fed bank's research group, and from 2009 to 2012 he ran a sector analysis group in the regulation division, which he will now head.

Through a spokeswoman, Stiroh declined to comment.

Last month Dahlgren, a low-key and well-respected figure at the Fed and on Wall Street, stepped down a couple weeks earlier than planned. She took a job at an outside firm, the New York Fed said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Diane Craft and Dan Grebler)