WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Valerie Jarrett, CEO and a member of the board of directors of The Obama Foundation, will be the principal speaker at Williams College's 236th commencement exercise on Sunday, June 8.

 

The day before, Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Nobel laureate, will deliver the college's baccalaureate lecture. 

 

Commencement weekend begins Saturday with the annual Ivy Exercises at 1:10 in the Quad ('62 Center in case of rain); the baccalaureate service is a ticketed event in Chapin Hall at 5 p.m. 

 

On Sunday, a Mass will be held at Thompson Memorial Chapel at 7:30 a.m. and the Quad will open for visitors at 8 a.m. with the procession at 9:30. Commencement starts at 10 and will also be livestreamed here. The President's Reception follows on the Chapin Hall Lawn. 

 

Should the exercises be forced indoors, tickets will be required to enter Lansing Chapman Ice Rink. 

 

In her role at the Obama Foundation, Jarrett is overseeing the creation of a new world-class cultural and civic institution on Chicago's south side, and programs that rare designed to inspire, empower and connect people to change their world. 

 

She is also a senior distinguished fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and the author of The New York Times bestselling book "Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward," published in April 2019. 

 

Jarrett is board chair of Civic Nation and serves on the boards of Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc., Ralph Lauren Corp., Sweetgreen Inc., Ariel Investments, the University of Chicago, and the Sesame Street Workshop. She also serves on the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Advisory Board, the Bank of America Enterprise Executive Development Council, and the Microsoft Advisory Council. 

 

As the senior adviser to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, she became the longest-serving senior adviser to a president in history. She oversaw the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls. 

 

Jarrett's background is in both the public and private sectors. She was CEO of the Habitat Co., the largest multifamily housing developer and manager in Chicago during her tenure. Prior to joining Habitat, Jarrett was the commissioner of planning and development for the city of Chicago, and deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. She practiced law for 10 years in the private and public sector. 

 

She also has served as the director of numerous corporate and not-for-profit boards, including leadership roles as chairman of the board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees, vice chairman of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees, chair of Chicago Transit Board, and director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. 

 

Jarrett has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, including TIME's 100 Most Influential People Award and Forbes 50 Over 50. 

 

She received her bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1978 and her juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.

 

Duflo is co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and chaire of pauvreté et politiques publiques at the Collège de France. In her research, she seeks to understand the economic lives of people living in poverty, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment and governance.

 

Her first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. She subsequently received a doctorate in economics from MIT in 1999.

 

Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes including the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (with co-Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer), the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2015), the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize (2014), the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), a John Bates Clark Medal (2010), and a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship (2009).  

 

With Banerjee, she wrote "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty," which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages, and Good Economics for Hard Times.

 

Duflo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.

 

In 2010, she was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, and in 2019, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics in memory of Alfred Nobel.