Cheryl Venable is first vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a position she assumed on August 1, 2024. She oversees the Bank's day-to-day operations, including all operating and support activities at the corporate headquarters in Atlanta and at the branch offices in Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, and New Orleans. She also serves as vice chair of the Atlanta Fed's executive leadership committee; a member of the Discount Committee, which reviews District discount window lending; and backup to the Atlanta Fed president in the execution of their monetary policy responsibilities.
Venable has spent her entire career with the Fed, having joined the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 1991 as a management trainee in the Accounting and Payment System Risk Department. She joined the Minneapolis Fed in 1996 and took on roles of increasing responsibility, including senior vice president over FedACH operations and automation. There, she also led the Information Technology Division and served on the Ninth District's management committee.
She joined the Atlanta Fed as Retail Payments Office (RPO) chief information officer in 2010. She was promoted to senior vice president and RPO product manager and member of the Sixth District's executive leadership committee in 2011. She was promoted to executive vice president in 2016.
In 2021, Venable was named executive vice president and chief of payments operations for Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS). In this role, she led the team responsible for FRFS payments operations, including FedACH, checks, wholesale (Fedwire Funds Service, Securities, and the National Settlement Service), and FedNow. She also chaired the Federal Reserve's Business Technology Council for two and a half years.
Outside the Bank, Venable was board chair of Visiting Nurse Health System in Atlanta from 2019 through 2021 and served on its board of directors for nearly a decade.
A Missouri native, she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration from Saint Louis University.