Yvette Downs is a native of Washington, D.C., with a family legacy of scholarship and service.

 Professionally, Yvette has over 35 years of financial and program management experience with large municipal government agencies and within the federal government. She has served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for several large municipal agencies throughout the country: various agencies in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; Cincinnati, Ohio; and New Orleans, LA. In fact, she was the first female and the first black CFO for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC). In that capacity, Yvette was responsible for monitoring budgets and expense, ensuring accurate audit reporting, recommending policies and procedures that ensure consistency and regulatory compliance for all financial activity, and creating innovative rates, fees and credits for large municipal organizations. Prior to that, she spent 24 years with WMATA, (the public transit agency serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area), in numerous program management and financial positions, building and expanding the system to ensure transportation access for all citizens. Yvette currently works in the US Treasury where she has been the Director of Bank Policy and Oversight for the last six years, creating policies and guidance, developing $2 billion annual budgets for programs that collect $6 Trillion annually. In these various capacities, Yvette has been able to take on new challenges, elevate the programs and create guardrails to protect those most in need of the services provided. In 2024, she was recognized by the former Secretary of the Treasury for her work supporting minority banks.

Initiated in 1979 as a Model Initiate in New Orleans, LA., Yvette is a Golden Life member in the Washington, DC Alumnae Chapter (WDCAC). She also spent two years in the New Orleans Alumnae Chapter while working as CFO for the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. Her alumnae work started early, serving on a new program in D.C. called Self Awareness Self Esteem (SASE) that soon became a signature youth program for WDCAC for more than a decade. Yvette served on numerous chapter committees over the years and chaired a Jabberwock subcommittee in 2013 as well as volunteering as a part of the centennial host committee for the 51st national convention.  She also volunteered on the host committees for the 2019 and 2025 national conventions in New Orleans, LA and Washington, D.C. respectively. She was motivated to complete the WDCAC Building Leadership DID Series in 2013-2014 to take on larger roles within the sisterhood and led the planning and implementation of the year- end 2014 community forum along with her cohorts. Since then, she has chaired several large fundraising events exceeding event financial goals and served as Chair, Internal Audit for 3 years. She has served as the chapter Corresponding Secretary for the last four years. In 2024, she served on the reactivation team for Nu Alpha at American University and was an assisting soror in 2024-2025.

At the regional level, Yvette continues to raise her hand in service and is currently a DID facilitator, served on the Elections Committee for the 2024 Regional Conference and the Eastern Region Special Events Committee in 2017.

Yvette remains active in many other community and professional capacities, including serving as treasurer for her homeowners association and serving as an Election Day poll worker in the Nation’s capitol.  Yvette served on the Board of Directors for the Markii Caress Foundation for many years, providing items and opportunities to support children in need in DC.  She formerly served as an appointed member of the EPA Environmental Finance Advisory Board, past member of the National Budget Committee for Government Finance Officers Association, past Chair, DC Annual Filmfest, Vassar Club of Washington and past Secretary of Bureau of Fiscal Service chapter of BIG.

 Yvette is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, earning a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from Keller Graduate School. She also spent her junior year in college at Spelman College under an exchange program, having the privilege to affiliate with the sorors of Eta Kappa chapter for a year.

Yvette is married to Mark Downs and resides in Washington, D.C. She loves spending time with family, sorors and friends.  She also enjoys traveling both nationally and internationally.