Chao, Elaine L (1953– )

US government official, secretary of labor from 2001. Appointed by President George W Bush in January 2001, she was the first Asian-American woman in a presidential cabinet, and was to be the longest-serving member of Bush's cabinet. One of her key achievements was passing new regulations to provide millions of workers with strengthened overtime protection. Chao's background had been in business and public and community service and she was an opponent of affirmative action programmes. As director of the Peace Corps 1991–92, she established Peace Corps branches in the newly independent states of the former USSR, and in 1992–96 was chief executive officer of United Way of America, the country's largest institution of charitable giving.

She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, into an entrepreneurial familyl which had fled Shanghai, in mainland China, after the 1949 communist revolution. Her family immigrated to the USA when she was eight years old. She secured a master of business administration from Harvard Business School and later studied at Columbia University, before working in banking. She was deputy secretary of transportation 1989–91 under President George H W Bush and has also been chair of the Federal Maritime Commission.