Valerie June Jarrett (née Bowman; born November 14, 1956) is an American businesswoman, attorney and former government official who has been the chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation since 2021. She was the longest-serving senior advisor to President Barack Obama. She headed his White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls. Before serving in the White House, she was the chief executive officer of property developer The Habitat Company and a co-chair of the Obama–Biden Transition Project.
Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, during the Shah's rule, to American parents James E. Bowman and Barbara T. Bowman. Her father, a pathologist and geneticist from Chicago, worked on regional health systems based at hospital in Shiraz in the 1950s. When she was five years old, the family moved to London for a year, then moved back to Chicago in 1962.
Jarrett's father was the first African American to have a medical residency at St Luke's hospital in Chicago, and after his return to the US, to get professorial tenure at the University of Chicago medical school. Her maternal great-grandfather, Robert Robinson Taylor, was the first accredited African-American architect, and the first African-American student to enroll at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her maternal grandfather, Robert Rochon Taylor, was chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority in the 1940s.
As a child, Jarrett spoke Persian, French, and English. She and her family would travel several times to Africa for her father's work in medical development. Her mother was one of four children's advocates who created the Erikson Institute in 1966. The institute was established to expand collective knowledge of child development for teachers and other professionals working with young children.
Jarrett went to the University of Chicago Lab School, then she graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1974. She 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.
After graduating from law school, Jarrett returned to Chicago and worked as an attorney in finance and real estate law in the private sector.
Jarrett got her start in Chicago's city hall in 1987 working for Mayor Harold Washington as Deputy Corporation Counsel for finance and development.
Jarrett continued to work in the mayor's office in the 1990s, moving from the law department into public administration. She was deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley, during which time (1991) she hired Michelle Robinson (who was then engaged to Barack Obama) from Sidley Austin. Jarrett served as commissioner of the department of planning and development from 1991 through 1995.
From 1995 to 2009, Jarrett was the CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development and management company. Daniel E. Levin was the chairman of Habitat, which was formed in 1971. Jarrett was a member of the board of Chicago Stock Exchange (2000–2007, as chairman, 2004–2007).
During her time at Habitat, Jarrett was also a member of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago Medical Center, becoming vice chairwoman in 2002 and chairwoman in 2006. She also served as chairwoman of the Chicago Transit Authority and vice chairwoman of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago. She was a trustee of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Jarrett serves on the board of directors of USG Corporation, a Chicago-based building materials corporation.
Jarrett was President Obama's longest serving advisor, confidante and was "widely tipped for a high-profile position in an Obama administration". The Wall Street Journal's Douglas Belkin was quoted saying
Unlike Bert Lance, who arrived from Georgia with President [Jimmy] Carter and became his budget director, or Karen Hughes, who was President [George W.] Bush's communications manager, Ms. Jarrett isn't a confidante with a particular portfolio. What she does share with these counterparts is a fierce sense of loyalty and a refusal to publicly say anything that may reflect poorly on the candidate—or steal his thunder.
On November 14, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama selected Jarrett to serve as a senior advisor to the president and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison.
Jarrett was one of three senior advisors to Obama. She held the retitled position of assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement, managed the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Office of Urban Affairs; she also chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls and the White House Office of Olympic, Paralympic, and Youth Sport. She was part of the United States state visit to the United Kingdom in May 2011.
She said that the 2011 report Women in America, which the administration produced for the Council on Women and Girls, would be used to guide policy-making.
Jarrett had a staff of approximately three dozen and received full-time Secret Service protection. Jarrett's role as both a friend of the Obamas and as senior advisor in the White House was controversial: in his memoirs Robert M. Gates, former secretary of defense, discussed his objection to her involvement in foreign security affairs; David Axelrod reported in his memoirs about Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel's attempts to have her selected as Obama's replacement in the United States Senate, due to concerns about the potential difficulty in working with a family friend in a major policy role.
Additional leadership positions
In addition to being senior advisor to the president, Jarrett held other leadership positions and completed further duties. Among those included chairing the White House Council on Women and Girls and co-chairing the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. In March 2014, she participated as a speaker on Voices in Leadership, an original Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health webcast series, in a discussion entitled, "Leadership in the White House," moderated by Dr. Atul Gawande.