Janet Yellen, the Reuters Next conference secretary, told the Reuters Next conference that she had no plans to leave her job soon and that she is enjoying it very much. Yellen, 75, is the first woman to serve as Treasury chief and chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 2014 to 2017; she was only the second woman to head the Council of Economic Advisers, a role she held under former President Bill Clinton.
She said I've just started going. We have a lot of important work to do, so I have no plan to leave Treasury any time soon. In her speeches, Yellen talks about her lifelong interest in addressing inequities in the U.S. economy, and she has played a major role in shaping the Biden administration's policies aimed at ending childhood poverty, boosting wages for low-income earners and ending systemic racism in housing.
Asked about the impact of having more women in key economic positions, Yellen said she believed diversity was important and it remained a key goal of the Biden administration.
When I was a Fed chair, I often appeared, in events with Christine Lagarde, and Christine Lagarde often commented that if it had been the Lehman Sisters instead of the Lehman Brothers, we wouldn't have had a financial crisis, she said, referring to the collapse of the private U.S. investment bank that fueled the 2008 global financial crisis.
She said that's something that always sticks with me. I think women bring to the table the kind of proclivities with respect to managing risks, and weighing costs and benefits that may lead to more judicious and cautious policies sometimes. Lagarde is a former managing director of the International Monetary Fund and current president of the European Central Bank.
The research shows that having more diverse people in power generally results in a wider range of factors being considered and better policymaking, according to Yellen, whose deputy, Wally Adeyemo, is the first black person to serve in that post.
President Joe Biden promised to appoint the most diverse Cabinet in the world, including a record 11 women, including seven women of color, including Vice President Kamala Harris.