If you have a dollar bill in your wallet, there’s a good chance it bears the name of Rosa “Rosie” Rios. She might be partially responsible for any brand-new quarters in your pocket, too.
Thanks to her time as U.S. treasurer in the Obama Administration, from 2009 to 2016, Rios’ signature appears on about $1.8 trillion worth of American currency, the majority of the roughly $2.2 trillion currently in circulation. She spent much of that time pushing for greater female representation on currency, an effort that’s finally bearing fruit with quarters featuring poet Maya Angelou which rolled out in January 2022
The Maya Angelou quarter is now on its way to your bank! Thank you Congresswoman Lee for your partnership to make my dream of redesigning our nation’s coins a reality after over five painful years. Maya represents the voice of so many people who still remain voiceless today. pic.twitter.com/PMRFx6220k
— Rosie Rios (@RosieRios) January 11, 2022
Currently Rosie Rios is the CEO of Red River Associates, a real estate investment management consulting firm and a co-host of Unicorn Hunters, a reality series focused on pre-IPO investments.
She served as the 43rd Treasurer of the United States and was the CEO of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint, including Fort Knox. She also initiated and led the efforts to place a portrait of a woman on U.S. currency for the first time in over a century. Upon her resignation in 2016, she received the Hamilton Award, the highest honor bestowed in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Early Life
Rios was born the sixth of nine children in Hayward, California. Rios’ mother raised all nine children on her own and with the support of their church, sent all of her children to Catholic schools and off to college. All nine children worked at a young age. Rios worked beginning in her freshman year of high school at the office headquarters for the Alameda County Library System. Rios stated that she “had won the lottery with this job” as she had access to any book she ever wanted to read and that her experience and reading during this period led in part to her acceptance to Harvard University.
Rios graduated from Moreau Catholic High School in 1983, before attending Harvard, where she graduated with high honors. She received the Dean’s Award as the founder of Cultural Rhythms and is one of the few U.S. recipients of the Silver Medal Award from the Royal Society of Arts in Britain. Rios was hired by General Reinsurance Corporation as a Commercial Property Underwriter to analyze the risks of commercial investments. She later pursued her MBA at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Rosie was the longest serving Senate-confirmed Treasury official beginning with her time on the Treasury/Federal Reserve Transition Team in November 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Following her tenure, she was appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University with a focus on Millennials and Post-Millennials.
In her role as Treasurer of the United States, Rosie’s day-to-day responsibilities included overseeing all currency and coin production activities overseeing 4,000 employees in eight facilities nationwide with an annual budget of approximately $5 billion.
Her signature currently appears on a world-record $1.7 trillion of U.S. currency out of the approximately $2 trillion in circulation worldwide. Legendary investor Warren Buffet said ‘Rosie Rios’ has her signature on more US currency than any other person in history’
Rosie’s entire career has focused on real estate finance, economic development, and urban revitalization in both the public and private sectors. Prior to her presidential appointment in Treasury, Rosie was Managing Director of Investments for MacFarlane Partners, a $22 billion real estate investment management firm based in San Francisco.
She was responsible for several of MacFarlane Partners’ urban investment activities including sourcing, underwriting, and structuring prospective investments and all relevant due diligence as well as overseeing projects during their development and stabilization. Other real estate/urban revitalization activities include serving as the Director of Economic Development and/or Redevelopment for multiple cities such as Oakland, Fremont, San Leandro, and Union City.
She consulted with the City of San Francisco Public Utility Commission and reported to the Assistant General Manager for Infrastructure on one of the nation’s largest capital improvement programs. Her first job following college was as a Commercial Property Underwriter for General Reinsurance Corporation.
Rosie is a graduate of Harvard University and was selected as the first Latina in Harvard’s 385-year history to have a portrait commissioned in her honor. Her portrait was officially unveiled at Winthrop House in May of 2019. She currently serves on the board of American Family Insurance, Ripple, Fidelity Charitable Trust, the Schlesinger Council at Harvard, and the Advisory Committee for Artemis Real Estate Partners.
She was previously a Trustee with the Alameda County Employees Retirement Association (ACERA). In 2019, she was appointed as a member of America 250, the Congressional Commission to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding in 2026. She serves on the Executive Committee and is the Chair of the Finance and Audit Committees and is leading the strategic planning process.
Her personal passion includes serving as Founder and CEO of EMPOWERMENT 2026, an initiative that facilitates the physical recognition of historical American women. Its first project, Teachers Righting History, recognizes historical American women in classrooms across the country. She has also launched Notable Women, an Augmented Reality educational initiative in collaboration with Google. In August 2020 she was honored as one of USA Today’s Women of the Century.
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