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Obama announces Thomas Nides to replace Jack Lew

The White House announced late Wednesday President Obama’s intention to nominate  Morgan Stanley’s Thomas Nides to be the next deputy Secretary of State for management and resources, replacing Jack Lew, who is waiting to be confirmed to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Here’s the short bio the White House put ...

The White House announced late Wednesday President Obama's intention to nominate  Morgan Stanley's Thomas Nides to be the next deputy Secretary of State for management and resources, replacing Jack Lew, who is waiting to be confirmed to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The White House announced late Wednesday President Obama’s intention to nominate  Morgan Stanley’s Thomas Nides to be the next deputy Secretary of State for management and resources, replacing Jack Lew, who is waiting to be confirmed to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Here’s the short bio the White House put out about Nides:

Thomas R. Nides is the Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley. He is an executive officer and serves as a member of Morgan Stanley’s Management Committee and Operating Committee. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Nides served for one year as Worldwide President and Chief Executive Officer of Burson-Marsteller, one of the largest public relations agencies in the world. From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Nides was Chief Administrative Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, and served on the firm’s Executive Board. Mr. Nides has also served as Chief of Staff to the United States Trade Representative (Mickey Kantor), Executive Assistant to the Speaker (Tom Foley), Assistant to the Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives and Senior Vice President of Fannie Mae. Mr. Nides is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.

He also managed the 2000 vice presidential campaign of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).

Nides is in for a substantial pay cut if confirmed. According to Forbes magazine, he pulled in over $3.1 million in salary and bonuses for 2008. Morgan Stanley received $10 billion in U.S. taxpayer bailout funds during the financial crisis but paid it all back last year.

Meanwhile, Lew’s nomination to head OMB is still being held up by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) over her unrelated demand that the Obama administration clarify or repeal its ban on offshore oil drilling.

No schedule has yet been set for Nides’ confirmation process, pending official notification to the Senate.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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