Location
Magdalen College Auditorium
Event type
Alumni, College, Public, staff, University
Date
5 May 2026
Time
5.30 p.m.
Distinguished Magdalen alumni Michael Barr (1989) and Sam Woods (1992) join President Dinah Rose in conversation about their paths to government service in the UK and US. They will also share insights gained from their experiences regulating transnational financial institutions.
Michael has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since 2022. He served as the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2022 to 2025.
Between 2009 and 2010, he served as the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. Under President Clinton, he served as the Treasury Secretary’s Special Assistant, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Special Adviser to the President, and Special Adviser and Counselor on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State.
He served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter during the October Term 1993, and previously to the Honorable Pierre N. Leval, then of the Southern District of New York. He received a BA in History from Yale University and a JD from Yale Law School.
Sam is Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation and Chief Executive Officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), having assumed the role in July 2016. He is also a member of the Bank’s Court of Directors, the Prudential Regulation Committee, the Financial Policy Committee, and the Board of the Financial Conduct Authority.
Sam’s previous role was Executive Director of Insurance at the PRA, where he oversaw the monitoring and regulation of more than 600 life and general insurance firms. He joined the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in 2011 and transferred to the Bank in 2013 following the integration of the PRA.
He also served as Director of Financial Stability Strategy and Risk and, prior to that, as Director of Domestic UK Banks Supervision. Before joining the FSA and the Bank, Sam spent ten years at HM Treasury in a variety of senior roles.
