Thinkers50 Podcast

Valerie Rainford: Passion Plus Purpose If passion and purpose are the currency of business, then Valerie Rainford has a lifetime of wealth from which to draw. Now, the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies, she is author of the award-winning memoir Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium. Her remarkable career is loaded with firsts: the youngest officer promoted in the history of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the most senior black woman and the first black woman Senior Vice President at JPMorgan Chase & Co. where she created and led the company’s global Advancing Black Leaders strategy which helped increase black leadership by over 50% in less than three years. In this remarkable conversation with Stuart Crainer of Thinkers50 and Geoff Tuff of Deloitte, Valerie charts her rise from being the child of sharecroppers to success in the corporate world. ‘Especially early in my career, I didn't know what I was capable of. I didn't have any role