iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
On Friday, January 15, amidst a host of the new announcements US President-elect Joe Biden named another Kashmir-born to his team.
Sameera Fazili, an Indian-American economist has been appointed as the Deputy Director, National Economic Council at the White House.
The National Economic Council coordinates the economic policy-making process and provides economic policy advice to the US president.
So who is Sameera Fazili?
Fazili is currently the Economic Agency lead on the Biden-Harris Transition. She was earlier posted at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta where she served as the Director of Engagement for Community and Economic Development.
Fazili is the second Kashmiri-origin Indian-American appointed to a key position in the incoming Biden administration.
The other Kashmiri-origin Indian-American is Aisha Shah, who was named as Partnerships Manager at the White House Office of Digital Strategy this past December.
Prior to this role, Shah worked as an assistant manager on the Corporate Fund of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, supporting the first-ever expansion of a presidential memorial.
In the Obama-Biden administration, Fazili served as a senior policy adviser on the White House’s National Economic Council and as a senior adviser at the US Treasury Department in both Domestic Finance and International Affairs.
Before her time in government, Fazili was a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School’s community and economic development clinic, where she helped start a CDFI bank and a local anti-foreclosure initiative, and expanded the clinic’s work to international microfinance.
She also worked at ShoreBank, the nation’s first CDFI (community development financial institution) bank. Her work in finance has spanned consumer, housing, small business and microfinance.
She received her law degree from Yale Law School and her bachelor of arts degree in social studies from Harvard College. Originally from Buffalo, she now lives in Georgia with her husband and three children.
