Sheila C. Bair, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation who once argued that former regulators should be barred from joining the banks they oversaw, is joining the board of Banco Santander, the Spanish bank said on Monday.
Ms. Bair, who ran the F.D.I.C. during the turmoil of the financial crisis, has been appointed a director of Santander, subject to ratification by shareholders, the bank said. She will fill a vacancy left by Terence Burns, a former British official who served for more than a decade on the Spanish bank’s board.
Though Santander is based in Madrid, it has extensive operations in the United States, with billions of dollars in deposits, and is regulated by the F.D.I.C. Santander Consumer USA, the bank’s American auto lending arm, held an initial public offering last week.
In its statement, the bank cited Ms. Bair’s “international experience and her knowledge of the U.S financial market.â€
Ms. Bair, who left the F.D.I.C. in 2011, is a senior adviser to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit public policy organization. She has previously spoken out against the so-called revolving door, in which former regulators go to work for the industry they once oversaw.
“I would like to see financial regulation be viewed as a lifelong career choice â€" similar to the Foreign Service â€" rather than a revolving door to a better-paying job in the private sector,†she wrote in her book, “Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself.â€
“There should be a lifetime ban on regulators working for financial institutions they have regulated,†she wrote.
Ms. Bair did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Her compensation for the board position was not disclosed.
