Valerie Jarrett

Why She Matters

In 1991, a young lawyer walked into Chicago mayoral aide Jarrett’s office and asked for a job. That meeting with the future Michelle Obama started a friendship that would last for decades. Over the years, the Obamas have regularly asked Jarrett for advice and she has been a part of almost all of their major decisions.

That didn’t change when Barack Obama decided to run for president. Obama sought Jarrett’s counsel throughout the campaign, describing her as the ultimate “utility player,” or someone who could step into any role. “I trust her completely,” Obama says. The two talked every day during the campaign, and she often urged him to follow his gut when pollsters and political strategists had other advice, the Chicago Tribune reported.Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008

A lawyer with a background in real estate, Jarrett worked in city government for nearly a decade before moving to The Habitat Co., a for-profit company that controls much of Chicago’s low-income housing.The company was involved in some controversy over its strategy of demolishing large housing projects and replacing them with smaller, mixed-income units.

After Obama won, he named Jarrett co-chair of his transition team, where she researched and vetted candidates for top positions in his administration. She  took the wide-ranging title of White House senior adviser and assistant to the president for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liason. She will be the point person for contact with state and local officials and will also chair the White House Council on Women and Girls.

She is so close to Obama that the president describes her as a "sibling." "Valerie is one of my oldest friends," Obama says. "Over time, I think our relationship evolved to the point where she's like a sibling to me...I trust her completely." Draper, Robert, The New York Times Magazine, 'The Ultimate Obama Insider,' July 26, 2009

Path to Power

Like Obama, Jarrett has a somewhat unusual life story, something they bonded over when the two first met in 1991.

Jarrett’s father was a doctor, and in the 1950s, he and his wife, Barbara, who is an expert in early childhood development, moved to Shiraz, Iran, about 500 miles south of Tehran. He was part of a program that sent American doctors and agriculture experts to developing nations, and Jarrett was born in 1956 at Nemazee Hospital, the brand-new hospital her father for which he father worked. They lived in Iran for six years, and moved to England for one year before returned to Chicago and settling in Hyde Park. “I had no awareness of race until we returned to the United States,” Jarrett says.Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008

Despite her transient childhood, Jarrett is actually part of one of Chicago’s power families. Her maternal grandfather, Robert Rochon Taylor, was the first black man to head the Chicago Housing Authority, and his father was the first African-American to graduate from M.I.T., eventually becoming an architect and the vice principal of the Tuskegee Institute. Jarrett’s father, James Bowman, was not only the first black person to be a resident at St. Luke’s Hospital but also the first to receive tenure in his department at the University of Chicago.Uncredited with contributions from Jonathan Becker, “Barack’s rock,” Vogue, October 2008

When Dr. Bowman was accepted to the residency, he was barred from living in the hospital dorm, and he was told he had to enter work through the back door of the hospital. On his first day, he refused and walked through the front door. The next day, the entire black staff waited for him so they could walk through the front door together, Jarrett says. “My parents often told me that because I was both black and a woman, I should expect to have to work twice as hard,” she adds. “They did not dwell on the unfairness. Rather, they readily admitted it was unfair, but a fact of life. They also believed that I would benefit from working harder and learning more.”Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008

During her childhood, Jarrett spent summers traveling, not just back to Iran but around the world to countries where her father would work and her mother would study education models.Cottle, Michelle, “The Woman to See,” The New Republic, Aug. 27, 2008 Jarrett said she would assemble the syringes while her father did blood work for people in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Egypt and a variety of other countries. “It made me comfortable talking to anybody at a very young age, and because I was an only child, I spent a lot of time with adults.”Uncredited with contributions from Jonathan Becker, “Barack’s rock,” Vogue, October 2008 She got a degree in psychology from Stanford University and a law degree from University of Michigan and went to work at a law firm in Chicago, specializing in corporate real estate.

She hated it. Divorced since shortly after her daughter was born, Jarrett is a long-time single mom. When she had her daughter, it “triggered something inside me. I wanted to do something that she’d really be proud of me for.” In 1987, Jarrett took a job in the law department of the Chicago city government working on economic development issues and real estate deals.Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008 Mayor Harold Washington (D) died shortly after she got to city hall and Eugene Sawyer (D) took over. When Richard M. Daley (son of former mayor Richard J. Daley) became mayor in 1989, many of Jarrett’s friends left but she stayed.

Jarrett worked her way up to become one of Daley’s most trusted advisers, serving as deputy chief of staff. When looking to fill a job opening in 1991, friend and coworker Susan Sher passed along the resume of a young lawyer named Michelle Robinson, who was working at Sidley Austin but wanted to get into public service. “She is made for you,” Sher said. “This is exactly what you did.”

Jarrett interviewed Robinson and offered her the job on the spot, “which was totally inappropriate because I should have talked to the mayor first. But I just knew she was really special.” Michelle Robinson thought about the offer and asked Jarrett to have dinner with her and her fiancé Barack Obama. At the dinner, Obama quizzed Jarrett about the job and Michelle decided to take the position.

Jarrett and Michelle Obama quickly became close friends, and when Jarrett left the mayor’s staff to become the city commissioner of planning and development, she took her protégé with her.

The Issues

Jarrett served as an unofficial adviser and counselor on just about everything during the course of the 2008 presidential campaign. That hasn't changed since the Obamas have moved into the White House. Jarrett calls Barack Obama "Mr. President" in the West Wing and "Barack" in the more private East Wing.

A friend of nearly 20 years, Jarrett has the ability to tell the president when he’s doing something wrong, and she can be honest with Obama. That was Jarrett's primary job during the campaign. Obama said they talked every day, and she would fly to meet with him whenever she had the time. “She participates in every conversation we have in the campaign,” he has said. “She is involved in broad strategic decisions about our message and how we approach the campaign, and she’s involved in the details of managing the organization. She’s really a great utility player.”Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008

Jarrett describes herself as a sounding board. She has also been described as the new president’s eyes and ears at meetings he cannot attend.Kantor, Jodi, “Candidates emerge for Obama’s Inner circle: Valerie Jarrett,” The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2008

Obama says Jarrett is always pushing him to trust his instincts, pointing to the pivotal moment during the 2008 campaign when he decided to confront the race issue head on after the explosive sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright were released. She also suggested that Obama end the well-received speech, a campaign highlight, by telling an anecdote about a young white woman and an older black man whom she had seen bond over campaigning for Obama.Terry, Don, “'In the path of lightning’; Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama,” Chicago Tribune Magainze, July 27, 2008

Jarrett's other hat in the White House is as assistant to the president for public liaison. She has focused mainly on the business side of public liaison, talking with CEOs from top companies such as American Express and Citigroup and getting their reads on the economic crisis. "I'm hoping they feel as though they're talking to somebody who appreciates their situation, even if I don't always agree with their perspective," said Jarrett, who spent many years in corporate boardrooms herself.Goldman, Julianna, "Washington outsider Jarrett is Obama envoy to bankers," Bloomberg News, April 16, 2009

The Network

Jarrett is most notably friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. They have been friends since Jarrett hired Michelle to work in the Chicago mayor’s office in 1991.

She is one of the most connected people in Chicago, and now national, Democratic politics. She is still close to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, whom she worked with for years, and she counts Chicago entrepreneur Penny Pritzker, Obama’s 2008 national finance chair, among her closest friends. She is closely tied into Obama’s Chicago network. Her father mentored Eric Whitaker and Anita Blanchard at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Both are good friends with the Obamas, and Blanchard is married to Martin Nesbitt, another close Obama friend, who served as the 2008 campaign treasurer. She served on the board of the University of Chicago Lab School with Michelle Obama, Martin Nesbitt and John W. Rogers, a friend and the former husband of Social Secretary Desiree Rogers.

Jarrett works directly with Tina Tchen both in the office of public liaison and on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett chairs and Tchen is the executive director.