Obama Expected to Name Summers Successor Next Month, Gibbs Says

A successor to National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers will probably be named next month, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today.

Summers is keeping his position through the end of the year, and President Barack Obama wanted to “take some time to make a good decision,” Gibbs said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “It’s an important part of our economic team.”

Obama announced in September that Summers, 56, would return to Harvard University, where he served as president from 2001 to 2006. He was Treasury secretary during President Bill Clinton’s administration.

Possible candidates to succeed Summers include Roger Altman, founder of Evercore Partners Inc.; Gene Sperling, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and Yale University President Richard Levin.

Gibbs said he didn’t expect other major personnel changes.

“We’ve had a very capable and good cabinet that has helped move the president’s agenda forward,” he told CNN. “We have a very talented team.”

--Editors: Brigitte Greenberg, Mark Rohner

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.