Sameera Fazili was most recently the deputy director of the National Economic Council (NEC) for the Biden administration, where her portfolio included industrial policy, supply chain resilience, and regional economic development.
Before joining the NEC during the Biden administration, she served on the Biden-Harris transition team as personnel lead for economic agencies. Before that, she served as director of engagement for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s community and economic development department, building a new research and action unit to support implementation of evidence-based policies on inclusive growth in the southeast. In the Obama administration, she served in domestic and international policymaking roles at both the White House and Treasury Department. At the NEC, she served as a senior policy adviser covering retirement, consumer finance, and economic development. At the Treasury Department, as senior advisor and chief of staff to the undersecretary for international affairs, her work focused on international finance including the European sovereign debt crisis, US government engagement with the World Bank, and US-China economic relations. On domestic policy, she advised on policies ranging from community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to housing finance to small business finance to financial crisis recovery programs. Before her time in government, Fazili was a clinical lecturer at Yale Law School’s community and economic development clinic, where she helped start a CDFI bank and a local anti-foreclosure initiative, and expanded the clinic’s work to international microfinance. She also worked at ShoreBank, the nation’s first CDFI bank. Her work in finance has spanned consumer, housing, small business, and microfinance.
Sameera received her law degree from Yale Law School and her BA in social studies from Harvard College. She has authored or coauthored numerous white papers and law journal articles, including “Decomposing Differences in Black Student Graduation Rates between HBCU and Non-HBCU Institutions: The Devil Is in the Details” (Economics Letters 2021), “Anchor Institution Strategies in the Southeast: Working with Hospitals and Universities to Support Inclusive Growth” (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta 2019), “Making Sure There Is a Future: Capitalizing Community Development Financial Institutions” (Urban Institute 2017), “A Role for the Feds? The Opportunities and Challenges in a Federal Government Role in Measuring and Defining Social Impact in the Impact Investing Field” (Community Development Investment Review 2010), and “Raising the ROOF: Addressing the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis through a Collaboration between City Government and a Law School Clinic” (Albany Government Law Review 2009). She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.