Jarrett, Valerie, 1956-

<p>Valerie Jarrett, née Valerie Bowman, (born November 14, 1956, Shīrāz, Iran), American lawyer, businesswoman, and politician who was a senior adviser (2009–17) to U.S. Pres. Barack Obama.</p>

<p>Bowman was born in Iran and spent much of her childhood traveling abroad, as her father was a physician who assisted developing countries in establishing health care systems. In 1963 her family settled in Chicago. (Bowman’s grandfather Robert Taylor was the first African American head of the Chicago Housing Authority.) She later attended Stanford University (A.B., 1978) and the University of Michigan Law School (J.D., 1981). In 1983 she married William Robert Jarrett, a physician; the couple divorced in 1988.</p>

<p>Working in corporate and real estate law until 1987, Jarrett moved into politics when she became deputy counselor for finance and development in the administration of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. After Washington’s death, Jarrett remained with the mayor’s office and accepted several positions in the administration of his successor, Richard M. Daley. She served as Daley’s deputy chief of staff and later as a planning commissioner. Jarrett was also chair of the Chicago Transit Authority from 1995 to 2003, and she served as chairman of the board for the Chicago Stock Exchange from 2004 to 2007. Beginning in 1995, she was executive vice president of the Habitat Company, a property management firm responsible for overseeing portions of Chicago’s public housing system. Jarrett became CEO of the company in 2007.</p>

<p>Jarrett was long associated with Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, whom she had hired as an assistant in 1991 while working for Daley. Jarrett developed an ongoing personal and professional relationship with the couple. She served as the finance chair of Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign and was treasurer of his political action committee. During Obama’s presidential campaign, Jarrett mediated between Obama and members of the African American community who were concerned about the implications of his candidacy, and she also served as an envoy to those who had supported Obama’s primary rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. After Obama’s election in November 2008, she served as cochair of his transition team. Later that month it was announced that Jarrett had been appointed senior adviser to Obama.Jarrett became a highly influential member of Obama’s inner circle and a forceful advocate of the president’s agenda. She was also known for advancing progressive measures, such as the inclusion of free birth control in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010). Jarrett helped Obama win reelection in 2012, and she continued to serve as senior adviser until his second term ended in 2017. She later wrote the memoir <i>Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward</i> (2019).</p>

<p>Valerie B. Jarrett is a Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, overseeing the White House Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, and chairing the White House Council on Women and Girls.</p>

<p>Ms. Jarrett has worked throughout her tenure at the White House to mobilize elected officials, business and community leaders, and diverse groups of advocates behind efforts to strengthen and improve access to the middle class, to boost American businesses and our economy, and to champion equality and opportunity for all Americans. From ongoing campaigns to end sexual assault, raise the minimum wage, advocate workplace policies that empower working families, and promote entrepreneurship and early childhood education, Ms. Jarrett has helped the President develop a broad coalition of partners to execute a robust agenda.</p>

<p>Ms. Jarrett came to the White House with a background in both the public and private sectors, having served as the Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company in Chicago, Chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, Commissioner of Planning and Development, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.</p>

<p>She also served as Co-Chair of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, and the director of corporate and not-for-profit boards including Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees, and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.</p> <p>Jarrett received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1978 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.</p>

<p>Follow Valerie Jarrett on Twitter at @VJ44.</p>

<p>Valerie June Jarrett (née Bowman; born November 14, 1956) is an American businesswoman and former government official. She served as the senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama and assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs from 2009 to 2017. Before that, she served as a co-chair of the Obama–Biden Transition Project.</p>

<p>Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran,[1] during the Pahlavi dynasty, to American parents James E. Bowman and Barbara T. Bowman. Her father, a pathologist and geneticist, ran a hospital for children in Shiraz in 1956 as part of a program where American physicians and agricultural experts sought to help in the health and farming efforts of developing countries. When she was five years old, the family moved to London for a year, later moving to Chicago in 1963.</p>

<p>Her parents are both of European and African-American descent. On the television series Finding Your Roots, DNA testing indicated that Jarrett is of 49% European, 46% African, and 5% Native American descent. Among her European roots, she was found to have French and Scottish ancestry. One of her maternal great-grandfathers, Robert Robinson Taylor, was the first accredited African-American architect, and the first African-American student enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jarrett's father once told her that her great-grandfather was Jewish.</p>

<p>As a child, Jarrett spoke Persian, French, and English. In 1966, her mother was one of four child advocates who created the Erikson Institute. The institute was established to provide collective knowledge in child development for teachers and other professionals working with young children. She graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon in 1974, and earned a B.A. in psychology from Stanford University in 1978 and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981. On May 21, 2016, Jarrett received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Colby College in Waterville, Maine.</p>