6. Janet Yellen
A leading American economist, Janet Yellen served as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since 2010 until becoming the first woman to become chair of the board in 2014.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1946, Janet Yellen earned a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1967. She then went to Yale University, where she received her Ph.D. in 1971. After teaching at Harvard University, Yellen worked at the Federal Reserve from 1977 to 1978, and then became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
From 1997 to 1999, she served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and in 2004, she became president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In 2010, Yellen was selected to serve as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. President Barack Obama nominated her to become the board's chairman in October 2013.
