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| Peter Nicholl, while at the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina |
As anonymous functionaries, deputy governors of central banks generally do not become household names, nor much recognized by the public they serve.
In his native New Zealand, that is certainly true of Peter Nicholl. Before he re-invented himself as an international central banking gun-for-hire, Nicholl spent 22 years at Wellington’s central Reserve Bank of New Zealand, deputizing for much of that time in the shadow of Donald Brash, the long-time RBNZ governor who became something of a celebrity before failing as a politician.
Indeed, Nicholl’s lack of visibility among his fellow Kiwis was evident last year when he stood for election to his hometown health board in Tauranga on New Zealand’s North Island. No matter that Nicholl helped transform the RBNZ into one of the world’s first genuinely independent central banks, delivering the checks and balances and the economic stability that often comes with separation from politicians, voters for the Bay of Plenty District Health Board were unimpressed with Nicholl’s ‘Let my experience work for you’ ticket. When ballots for the six seats were counted, Nicholl came 18th in a field of 20.
