page_title: Valerie Jarrett
section_title: Advisor to Barack Obama
hierarchical_section_title: Valerie Jarrett / Career / Advisor to Barack Obama
caption_attribution_description: President Barack Obama Oval Office listens to Valerie Jarrett during a meeting with senior staff in the Oval Office on Aug. 13, 2009. From left; White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Jarrett, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Assistant to the President Mona Sutphen. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza) License on Flickr (2011-01-22): United States Government Work Flickr tags: Washington, DC, USA
context_page_description: Valerie June Jarrett is an American businesswoman and former government official. She served as the senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama and assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs from 2009 to 2017. Before that, she served as a co-chair of the Obama–Biden Transition Project.
context_section_description: Jarrett was one of President Obama's longest serving advisors and confidantes and was "widely tipped for a high-profile position in an Obama administration."
  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 President 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 U.S. State Visit to the UK 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 Rahm Emanuel's attempts to have her selected as Obama's replacement in the senate, due to concerns about the difficulty in working with a family friend in a major policy role.
caption: Obama speaks to Jarrett and other staff, August 2009
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