White House Names Senior Bank of America Executive to Commerce Post

The White House nominated Stefan M. Selig, a top executive at Bank of America, to a senior Commerce Department post on Thursday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Selig, executive vice chairman of global corporate and investment banking at Bank of America, will become under secretary for international trade.

In that role, Mr. Selig would head the International Trade Administration, a Commerce Department unit focusing on the competitiveness of American industry, job creation and the promotion of exports. He would fill a vacancy created by Francisco J. Sanchez, a lawyer who had run the roughly 2,500-person organization since 2009, but recently left to work in private business.

Mr. Selig would be joining an administration that has had a challenging relationship with Wall Street. Career investment bankers who have taken jobs with President Obama are few and far between, and the White House has come under some criticism for not appointing more financiers and business executives to government posts.

He would also be the rare Bank of America executive to work for the federal government. Goldman Sachs officials have typically been most prominent in going through the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, including two former Treasury secretaries, Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and Robert E. Rubin.

Mr. Selig, 50, who grew up in New York and attended the Dalton School, graduated from Wesleyan College and Harvard Business School. In 1984, he joined First Boston, where he worked for the pioneering investment bankers Bruce Wasserstein and Joseph Perella. When his bosses left to form their own firm, Wasserstein Perella & Company, Mr. Selig was among their first hires.

He also worked for UBS and Société Générale before joining Bank of America in 1999. As a mergers and acquisitions banker based in New York, Mr. Selig advises boards on corporate strategy. Recent deals include selling the candle maker Yankee Candle to the conglomerate Jarden Corporation and handling the initial public offering of the real estate company Re/Max.

Unlike many other Obama administration appointees, Mr. Selig has not been a big Democratic donor or operative. He showed up on the White House’s radar through Penny Pritzker, a major Obama supporter who became secretary of Commerce earlier this year. Mr. Selig had business dealings with Ms. Pritzker while she was an executive in the private sector.

In announcing the appoint, Ms. Pritzker said: “Stefan Selig is a tremendous talent and we’ll be lucky to have him join the Commerce Department. He has the global experience, management skills and understanding of how to put deals together to ensure that we will be able to continue our critical work to expand trade and exports, grow our economy and create jobs.”

Leslie H. Wexner, the chief executive of Limited Brands and a longtime client of Mr. Selig’s, applauded the nomination.

“I have the highest respect and confidence in Stefan, a person of wisdom and integrity” Mr. Wexner said. “I’m confident that his broad experience and excellent judgment will be of great value to our nation.”