Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- When nine U.S. bank chieftains gathered this week in a Treasury conference room to hear the government's plans to invest in their firms, they faced Washington's frontline crisis-response team: Henry Paulson, Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy Geithner -- and Kevin Warsh.

When Warsh was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board at age 35 in 2006, he was best known as the son-in-law of cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder. Little more than two years later, he has emerged as an inside player, working alongside Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Bernanke and New York Fed President Geithner as the government scrambles to prevent the financial crisis from bringing down the U.S. economy.