Jelena McWilliams

Jelena McWilliams (; born July 29, 1973) is a Serbian-American business executive and a former Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She was nominated to the position and to the FDIC Board of Directors by President Donald Trump, and the Senate confirmed her appointment on May 24, 2018. She was sworn in as chairman on June 5, 2018. Previously, McWilliams was executive vice president and chief legal officer of Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati, Ohio. She resigned from her position as Chairman of the Board of the FDIC on February 4, 2022. Early life and education Born Jelena Obrenić in Belgrade, Serbia, in the former Yugoslavia, McWilliams traveled to the United States at age 18 as part of a high-school exchange program. She attended the University of California at Berkeley for college. She funded her education by working a series of minimum-wage jobs. She wrote her thesis on the war in her native Yugoslavia. McWilliams graduated with highest honors with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and went on to earn her law degree from the UC Berkeley School of Law. Career McWilliams began practicing law working with tech firms at Morrison & Foerster LLP in Palo Alto, California and then moved to Hogan & Hartson LLP, now Hogan Lovells LLP, in Washington, D.C. From 2007 to 2010, McWilliams worked as a lawyer at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she focused on a proposal for rules meant to make it easier for consumers to dispute mistakes on their credit reports and to understand their mortgages.