She is "incredibly plugged in," said banker William Daley, brother of Democratic Mayor Richard Daley. "I can't think of another female on everybody's list for a corporate board seat."
The White House appointment means Jarrett, 52, will give up her job as chief executive of Habitat Co., one of the Midwest's largest property-management firms. She has already begun to step down from an array of civic boards and from corporate directorships that have brought her more than $350,000 a year in cash and benefits.
Although Jarrett's connections generally have proven profitable, they have also led to some notable embarrassments by enmeshing Habitat in the management of two dilapidated low-income housing projects. Those problems have recently attracted national attention because of Jarrett's ties to Obama.
"Do I enjoy seeing our name in the newspaper associated with an extremely troubled property?" Jarrett said. "No I don't, but I also have confidence that people know our reputation and value the job that we do."
Jarrett was born into the city's African-American elite. Her grandfather Robert Taylor was the first black chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.Jarrett was a young City Hall lawyer in 1988 when she met Richard M. Daley at the wedding of her friend John Rogers, a prominent investment adviser.Daley was elected mayor a year later, and Jarrett rose quickly to the post of planning commissioner in his cabinet. Along the way, she hired a lawyer named Michelle Obama, who introduced Jarrett to her husband, Barack.
Jarrett became a good friend of both Obamas, serving as chairman of the finance committee for Obama's 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate and a key adviser in the presidential race.
Over the years, Jarrett has accumulated an astounding array of directorships. She has been on about 17 boards, a total that doesn't include government agencies such as the Chicago Transit Authority, where she was Daley's hand-picked chairman from 1995 to 2003.
Jarrett has been a director along with former Republican Gov. James Thompson at Navigant Consulting, an international consulting firm that has contracts worth about $2 million a year with the state.
"She brings – aside from common sense and integrity – a wealth of contacts in the Chicago community," Thompson said.
Since 2005, she also has sat on the board of RREEF America REIT II, a real estate investment trust that has obtained investments of about $23 million from the CTA pension fund and more than $120 million from state pension funds.
Until last year, Jarrett was chairman of the Chicago Stock Exchange and was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She has been vice chairman of the University of Chicago's board of trustees, chairman of the university's hospital board and a vice chairman of the team preparing the city's bid for the 2016 Olympics – one of the mayor's most cherished initiatives.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-11-21/news/0811200839_1_valerie-jarrett-michelle-obama-chicago-style
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