page_title: Dina Powell
section_title: White House Personnel Office
hierarchical_section_title: Dina Powell / Bush administration / White House Personnel Office
caption_attribution_description: English: Dina Powell, Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel (as of 2005)
context_page_description: Dina Powell McCormick is an American financial executive, philanthropist and political advisor, best known for having been the United States Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy to President Donald Trump.
  A lifelong member of the Republican Party, she became involved in Texas-oriented Republican politics during and following her time at the University of Texas at Austin. During the George W. Bush administration, Powell served in several roles, first as an Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel and then as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs and Deputy Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy. In 2007, Powell joined Goldman Sachs, where she became a managing director and eventually partner at the firm, as well as president of its non-profit subsidiary, the Goldman Sachs Foundation. In that capacity she ran the foundation's 10,000 Women program.
  Powell joined the Trump administration during the transition period and remained thereafter. As a Deputy National Security Advisor she had a role in determining the first year of the administration's foreign policy, especially in regard to Middle East policy.
context_section_description: While working at the RNC, Powell was spotted by Clay Johnson III, who would come to be in charge of hiring for the George W. Bush administration. The day after the election Johnson called Powell regarding the presidential transition.
  Once in office, Johnson took her on as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel.
  Beginning in January 2003, Johnson moved up and elsewhere in the administration and Powell took on his role, thereby serving as the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, a senior staff position at the White House. In this role, she was responsible for assisting the President on the appointments of the cabinet, subcabinet and ambassadorial positions across the U.S. Government. She had a staff of 35 reporting to her; once the second term of the Bush presidency began in January 2005, was part of hiring some 4,000 people. She participated in some of the recommendations process as well as processing the applications. At age 29, she was the youngest person ever to hold this position.
  Some of the recommendations she made for the U.S. State Department put her in good stead with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
caption: Official White House photo during Bush years
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