Sarah Bianchi, Deputy Assistant, Economic Policy

Bianchi, 40, joined the White House in June 2011, after working for six years as an investor at Eton Park Capital, an asset-management company; she jumped to the private sector after then-Sen. John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential bid. Bianchi was Kerry's national policy director during his 2004 campaign and also served as deputy issues director for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign; in that post, she wrote Gore's health care reform plan. Before joining Kerry's campaign, she was deputy staff director for health at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and served as a policy consultant for the Democratic Leadership Council. Bianchi spent time as a policy adviser in the Clinton White House from 1995 to 2000,  including work for the Domestic Policy Council and the Office of Management and Budget. She grew up in Atlanta and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University, where her roommate was Gore's daughter Karenna, now Karenna Gore Schiff. In 2006, Bianchi married Grant Raymond Vinik, who is an assistant legal counsel in the Office of Senate Legal Counsel.