The return of Janet Yellen

Janet Yellen, the former US central-bank chief is back, this time as US Treasury secretary. Donald Trump wondered whether she was too short for the job – she is now seen as a towering figure.

Janet Yellen
(Image credit: © Getty Images)

“Given a fair shot and equal chance, there’s nothing beyond the capacity of the American people,” said US president-elect, Joe Biden, when introducing his new economic team. Janet Yellen personifies that vision, says The Wall Street Journal. Having made history in 2014 when she became the first woman to lead the US Federal Reserve, she has now smashed two more glass ceilings – becoming not just the first female US Treasury secretary, but also the first person to achieve the holy trinity of heading the Treasury, the central bank and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.