WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has appointed economist Judy Shelton as a counselor in the Office of the Secretary, giving her a senior advisory role focused on currency policy and global financial conditions.
Shelton will advise Bessent on currency issues, with particular emphasis on evaluating financial conditions in China.
She has spent much of her career studying international monetary systems, exchange rates and the financial conditions of major economies.
Shelton previously served as U.S. director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and as chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy. She has also testified before Congress on international financial issues and advised national-security officials on global economic developments.
Before joining Treasury, Shelton was a senior fellow at the Independent Institute. She previously worked as a senior research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where her work focused on monetary policy and international finance.
Her books include The Coming Soviet Crash and Money Meltdown.
Shelton began her career as a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she received a postdoctoral fellowship to study the effect of Western capital on the Soviet economy.
She holds a doctorate in business administration from the University of Utah.
The appointment places Shelton in a senior Treasury role at a time when currency policy and China’s financial conditions remain central to U.S. economic and trade policy.