George French is a Senior Fellow at Better Markets, where he provides advice on bank regulatory policy and other matters relevant to financial services.

Before joining Better Markets, Mr. French served at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for 38 years. He joined FDIC as a financial economist in 1986 and rose through the ranks to become Deputy Director of the former Division of Insurance in 1996. In 2002 he was appointed Deputy Director of the Division of Risk Management Supervision. In that role, he had oversight of the teams responsible for developing regulatory and examination policies for capital markets and bank safety and soundness, and of a team that analyzed emerging risks in banking from an offsite perspective. Among other things, he played a significant personal role in the development of FDIC policies and overall approaches toward capital adequacy regulation. In 2018 he returned to his roots as an economist by rejoining the Division of Insurance and Research as Senior Advisor, and subsequently Deputy Director for Research and Regulatory Analysis. In these roles, he had oversight of the content of, and policies for, the FDIC’s analysis of regulations.

Before joining FDIC, Mr. French was an assistant professor of economics at Tulane University from 1982 to 1986. He received a Ph. D. in economics from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University.