William J. Bynum
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Members of the Atlanta Fed’s boards of directors play a critical role in helping to formulate monetary policy, and they act as a link between the Federal Reserve and the community. Head office directors also oversee the general management of the Reserve Bank and its branches. The Sixth District’s 44 board members are business and community leaders representing a broad mix of industries and economic sectors. They come from local, regional, and global organizations headquartered across our region.
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Biography
William J. Bynum
Chief Executive Officer
Hope Credit Union, Hope Enterprise Corporation,
and Hope Policy Institute
Jackson, Mississippi
Appointed: April 28, 2022
Term expires: December 31, 2028
William J. Bynum has served as chief executive officer of Hope Credit Union, Hope Enterprise Corporation, and Hope Policy Institute, collectively known as HOPE, since their inception in 1994.
HOPE is a family of development organizations dedicated to strengthening the financial health and wealth of people in underresourced communities in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. HOPE has generated more than $4 billion in financing that has benefited more than 2.5 million individuals in the Deep South while shaping policies and practices that have improved conditions in opportunity-starved communities nationwide.
Mr. Bynum is a member of the boards of directors of the New Orleans Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Aspen Institute, Acumen America, the Legal Defense Fund, and Deep South Today, the Brookings-AEI Commission on U.S. Rural Prosperity, and as an adviser to Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and E Pluribus Unum.
He previously chaired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Advisory Board and Treasury Department Community Development Advisory Board. He also served on the US Treasury Department’s Advisory Committee on Racial Equity and as a Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the University of Michigan’s Gerald Ford School of Public Policy.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Henry Crown Fellow, Emerson Collective, Dial Fellow and Salzburg Global Fellow. Mr. Bynum has received the John W. Gardner Leadership Award, Heinz Award, Gramlich Award, Wegner Award, McNulty Prize, the Myrlie & Medgar Evers Voices of Courage & Justice Award, and honorary degrees from Talladega College and Tougaloo College.
Mr. Bynum earned his BA in political science and psychology from the University of North Carolina.