The former governor of the Canadian and British central banks announced he was running to become head of the Liberal Party and prime minister.

Mark J. Carney ’87 — a member of Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing body — launched his campaign to become Canada’s next prime minister at a rally in Edmonton, Alberta Thursday afternoon.

Carney disclosed his intentions to a crowd in Edmonton, Alberta, the western Canadian city where he spent the bulk of his youth, promising an economic agenda focused on lifting the country from a period of stagnant growth.