Every August, officials from central banks around the globe rub shoulders with top economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the Kansas City Fed’s Economic Policy Symposium. This year the theme is “Structural Shifts in the Global Economy.” But there’s been another type of shift at the conference: It’s become more diverse over the years, and former Kansas City Fed President Esther George played a key role.

In August of 2012, George was the new president of the Kansas City Fed and hosting her first Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. She looked out at the audience and saw a sea of mostly white, male faces. She vowed to bring more women and people of color to Jackson Hole.

“Being the hostess and looking out at that audience was probably the visual that I needed,” George explained.

She organized a happy hour for the handful of women there. “There were five of us around the table,” she said. “We all fit in one table.”

Diane Swonk was one of those five. She’s now chief economist at the accounting firm KPMG. “Esther George gave us a seat at the table,” Swonk said.

The happy hours became a tradition. As the women sipped huckleberry margaritas, George would ask them, “Who’s not here who should be?” At one point someone said, “Hey, what about Lisa Cook and Susan Collins?” This was before the two Black economists were top Fed officials. Swonk said George asked Collins and Cook to moderate high-profile debates at Jackson Hole.

“Controlling who gets to ask a question and when the questions come to an end. It’s hard to be a moderator — believe  me — in a room of economists and central bankers,” Swonk explained.

That moderating dramatically raised the profiles of Collins and Cook. And George invited Cook to sit at her table at dinner along with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. George said Cook impressed the top brass at the Fed.

“When her name came up, (there were) people saying, ‘Oh yeah, Lisa Cook, Jackson Hole, I remember her,'” George said.

In 2022 — at George’s last Jackson Hole symposium before retiring —  almost 30% of the audience was female. And more than 40% of the speakers were women, according to the Kansas City Fed. It doesn’t record the race of attendees, but George said she did see more Black and Brown faces last year.

Chris Brummer teaches financial regulation at Georgetown and tracks diversity at the Fed. He says a range of perspectives can result in better questions.

“They’re the kinds of questions that at least force people to think seriously about what are the downsides of any particular policy action,” he explained.

For example, if you hike interest rates to cool the economy, raising unemployment in the process, who loses their jobs? And if you stimulate the economy, do you end up widening economic inequality? Diversity, Brummer said, helps Fed officials realize their decisions create both winners and losers.

Clarification (Aug. 9, 2023): Boston Fed President Susan Collins was involved with the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium as a panel participant and as a moderator before Esther George became president of the Kansas City Fed. Collins was an early supporter of George’s work to diversify the symposium and remembers being part of the original happy hour George organized for women at Jackson Hole.