Cortney Cowley serves as Oklahoma City Branch Executive and Assistant Vice President for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Cowley joined the Bank in 2015 as an economist and was promoted to senior economist in 2021. In 2025, Cowley began her role as Branch Executive.
As Oklahoma City Branch Executive, Cowley is the Bank’s lead officer and economist in Oklahoma. She recruits and works closely with the Oklahoma City Branch Board of Directors and is responsible for briefing Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid, a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, on economic trends in the state. She also serves as a special advisor on agriculture to Governor Miki Bowman at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Cowley’s team conducts research and surveys on key regional issues such as energy, manufacturing and migration.
Cowley holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Oklahoma State University, as well as a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University and a bachelor’s degree in Biosystems Engineering from Oklahoma State University, where she was named a Harry S. Truman Scholar. She is a member of the Economic Club of Oklahoma, Downtown Club of Oklahoma City, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and serves as an economic advisor on the campaign cabinet of the United Way of Central Oklahoma. Cowley, along with her husband and eight-year-old twins, lives on a small farm northwest of Oklahoma City.