Meet the New Sheriff of Wall Street

The third figure of the triumvirate currently scrambling to keep America’s financial sector afloat might be lesser known than the other two, but not for long.

While Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have been the frontmen of the unprecedented bailout effort for Wall Street, Timothy Geithner, chief executive of the new New York branch of the Federal Reserve, has been no less effective. Geithner played a lead role in engineering the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase, the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the $85 billion rescue of AIG.

He first came to prominence in 1997 as the International Monetary Fund crisis tore across Asia, and threatened to decimate the world economy. Just 36 at the time, he was sent by then-President Clinton to negotiate a rescue package for the beleaguered Asian economies, sealing his reputation for dealmaking and economic know-how.

But Geithner’s impressive career started well before working under the Clinton administration. He was first tapped by Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm in 1985, before joining the Treasury in 1988, where he worked under three presidential administrations and five different Treasury secretaries. He took the head post at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2003.

His peers label him a brainiac and a master of equanimity. Says former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin: “Tim has a calm way in the face of whatever he’s facing and an irreverent sense of humor.”