United States President-elect, Joe Biden, has selected a Nigerian-born attorney, Adewale ‘Wally’ Adeyemo, as the Deputy Treasury Secretary.
Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, a Nigerian-born Attorney, who is a former senior international economic adviser during the Obama administration, will serve under former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who Biden plans to appoint to lead the US Treasury Department, Jomog News Nigeria reports.
His appointment is one of many key cabinet positions Biden is expected to announce in the coming days.
Adewale Adeyemo is currently the President of the Obama Foundation.
Before his appointment into the Obama administration, Adeyemo worked as an editor at the Hamilton Project, then served as senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to Jack Lew in the United States Department of Treasury.
He later worked as the chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and also served as the first chief of staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Elizabeth Warren.
In 2015, he was appointed to concurrently serve as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics and deputy director of the National Economic Council.
Born in Nigeria, Adeyemo was raised in California where he obtained a bachelor’s degree before proceeding to Yale Law School for his legal education. He is 39 years old.
Adeyemo, appointed as the president of the Obama Foundation in 2019, will work with Janet Yellen, nominee for the position of treasury secretary, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Nigerian-American had served in the administration of former president Obama as deputy national security adviser (NSA) for international economics.
He is reputed to have helped the US combat the global economic recession of 2008.
Biden’s economic team are mostly people who had served in the administration of Obama.
They reportedly played key roles in tackling the financial crisis that hit the US under the Obama presidency.
Adeyemo has held several management positions at the US department of the treasury, including senior adviser and deputy chief of staff — a position he held for about three years.
He is currently on the boards of Golden State Opportunity Foundation and Aspen Strategy Group, among others.
Adeyemo is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Yale Law School. While at Yale, he was the co-director, project on law and education for the university.
According to Politico, Biden is also expected to name Cecilia Rouse, an African American economist at Princeton University, to lead the Council of Economic Advisers.
