Adewale O. "Wally" Adeyemo

• Pandemic-program role: Treasury's number two under Secretary Yellen; helped oversee implementation of American Rescue Plan relief (State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds and the new Office of Recovery Programs) and Treasury operations during the COVID recovery/wind-down phase.
• Institution · office: Treasury · Office of the Deputy Secretary · Type: political(PAS)
• Tenure (relief-relevant): Mar 26, 2021 – January 2025 (he arrived while PPP was still taking applications, which it did until May 31, 2021; SBA took new COVID-EIDL applications through December 31, 2021)

The job (role mechanics)

• Level / appointment: PAS Senate-confirmed; Executive Schedule Level II (EX-II). Confirmed by the Senate on Mar 25, 2021 (Secretary Janet Yellen's statement: "a broad bipartisan vote"); sworn in Mar 26, 2021.
• Reports to: Secretary of the Treasury (Janet L. Yellen).
• Core responsibility: Treasury's second-in-command and chief operating officer; Department-wide management, plus a leading role on ARP recovery programs and (separately) sanctions/illicit-finance.
• Pay: Executive Schedule Level II = $199,300 (2021), per the OPM 2021-EX table and 5 U.S.C. 5313.
• Expectations / mandate: Oversee Treasury operations; help stand up and steward ARP implementation.
• Tenure norm: Serves at the pleasure of the President (political appointee). Departed at the end of the Biden administration in January 2025 (WestExec's March 2025 announcement calls him the former Deputy Secretary).

Who they are

Adewale O. "Wally" Adeyemo is an American attorney who served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from March 2021 to January 2025; before that he was president of the Obama Foundation (August 2019 – March 2021). Biographical details below are from the Wikipedia entry (secondary) unless a Treasury document is cited.

Education

• University of California, Berkeley — B.A. (2004)
• Yale Law School — J.D. (2009)

Career before

• Director of African American outreach, John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign (California)
• Editor, The Hamilton Project
• Senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to Secretary Jack Lew, U.S. Treasury; chief negotiator on TPP macroeconomic provisions
• First chief of staff, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (under Elizabeth Warren's stand-up)
• Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics & deputy director, National Economic Council (2015–2016); president's representative to G7/G20
• Senior advisor, BlackRock (2017–2019; earlier interim chief of staff to CEO Larry Fink)
• President, Obama Foundation (Aug 2019 – Mar 2021)

Role in the pandemic relief programs

As Deputy Secretary under Janet Yellen (sworn in Mar 26, 2021), Adeyemo helped oversee Treasury's implementation of American Rescue Plan relief alongside Under Secretary for Domestic Finance J. Nellie Liang. Treasury stood up a dedicated Office of Recovery Programs managing ARP programs totaling more than $1 trillion, including the $350B Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program for state, territorial, local, and Tribal governments. For SLFRF he convened roundtables with local and Tribal governments, pressed for equity in fund deployment, and highlighted ARP-funded job-training, housing, and economic-development uses (treasury.gov press releases jy0914, jy0860, jy0748, jy0754, jy1613).

Documents written or signed

• Remarks, Community Change/Urban Institute forum on ARP and equity (treasury.gov jy0860)
• READOUT: Roundtable with local and Tribal governments on ARP equity (treasury.gov jy0914)
• Testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee (treasury.gov jy2243)

Career after / where they are now

• Principal, WestExec Advisors (announced Mar 2025)
• Distinguished Fellow, Columbia University SIPA Institute of Global Politics (2025–26), and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at SIPA's Center on Global Energy Policy

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

• secondary; for bio/citation crosswalk
• Yellen statement on his confirmation

Sources (first-party)

• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Yellen statement on his confirmation (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture) (Yellen statement on his confirmation)
• Archived capture from www.congress.gov (original: congress.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from home.treasury.gov (original: home.treasury.gov · stored capture)
• Archived capture from www.westexec.com (original: westexec.com · stored capture)
• Archived capture from igp.sipa.columbia.edu (original: igp.sipa.columbia.edu · stored capture)
• secondary; for bio/citation crosswalk (original: en.wikipedia.org · stored capture) (secondary; for bio/citation crosswalk)