Brave Women | Janet Yellen

I shared this video recently that makes me cry every time I see it. Despite my tears, I realized I am not totally familiar with each of these amazing women's stories. So I decided to share them here in case you weren't familiar with all of them either. I will just give a very brief overview and then provide links where you can get more information on these inspiring women.  I plan on sharing these stories with my daughters.

JANET YELLEN 

Janet Yellen was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated summa cum laude from Brown University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1967, before enrolling at Yale University for her doctorate. After completing her Ph.D. in 1971, she spent several years as an assistant professor at Harvard University.

Yellen held her first post with the Federal Reserve in the late 1970s, serving as an economist there for a year before returning to academia. From 1978 to 1980, she lived abroad, becoming a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She then joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. Yellen took leave from UC Berkeley in the mid-1990s to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. From 1997 to 1999, she also served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers for President Bill Clinton.

In 2004, Yellen became president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, showing remarkable insight into the country's economic situation as one of the few economists to forecast the housing crisis of 2008. Yellen has been an outspoken advocate for using the powers of the Federal Reserve to reduce unemployment, and has seemed more willing than other economists to risk slightly higher inflation to accomplish this goal. In October 2013, President Barack Obama nominated Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve and the Senate voted her into that position. She is the first woman to serve in this capacity

At a White House press conference, President Obama praised Yellen's "good judgement" and said that she "knows how to build consensus." Considering the challenging political environment in Washington, he expressed his confidence in Yellen's ability to get things done. "She's a proved leader and she's tough—not just because she's from Brooklyn," the president said.

*To read all posts in my BRAVE WOMEN series click here.