Richard Carrión, the 60-year-old Puerto Rican who chairs the IOC Finance Commission, is to assume a new Board position at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Carrión has been on the New York Fed's Board since 2008, but in a seat reserved for representatives of smaller banks.

The bank he heads - Banco Popular de Puerto Rico - has now attained a size that makes him eligible for a position reserved for larger banks with capital and surplus of more than $1 billion (£661 million/€765 million), and it is this he will fill, in succession to Jamie Dimon of J.P.Morgan Chase & Co.

The New York Fed is one of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks set up almost a century ago as the operating arms of the US central banking system.

The move appears well-timed from Carrión's viewpoint, underlining his status as a figure of influence far beyond the Olympic Movement.


If he does decide to run to succeed Rogge, the Puerto Rican's financial and management expertise is likely to be an important part of his pitch.

Surging media rights valuations have helped to keep the Olympic Movement's revenues bounding ahead in spite of the recent widespread economic slowdown, and Carrión can claim some of the credit for this success.

IOC members are scheduled to elect a new President in September, with candidates set to emerge in June.

Though no-one has officially declared, Germany's Thomas Bach is widely seen as Rogge's likeliest successor.

Other possible candidates are thought to include Carrión, Singapore's Ser Miang Ng, Swiss pair René Fasel, President of the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations, and Denis Oswald, former President of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, Taiwan's Ching-Kuo Wu, President of AIBA, the international boxing association, Sergey Bubka, Ukraine's former pole-vaulter, and conceivably Nawal El Moutawakel, the IOC vice-president from Morocco.

All bar one of the IOC's eight Presidents have been Europeans.

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