Florence Payette

    

Florence Payette
Florence Payette in 2020
People's Commissar for Finance and the Treasury
Incumbent
Assumed office 20 October 2018
Chairperson of the State Bank of the United Commonwealth
In office 9 August 2013 – 20 October 2018
Preceded by	James Rubin
Succeeded by	Janet L. Jackson
Additional positions Full member of the 32nd–37th Central Committees Incumbent Assumed office 13 August 2001
Personal details
Born	(1962-07-07) 7 July 1962 Aeneasville, Missouri, American CR
Nationality	Continental
Political party	Continentalist Party
Spouse(s)	Marcus Cook
Alma mater	Warren University (BS) Yale University (MA, PhD)
Religion	Atheist
Awards	See below

Florence Payette (born 7 July 1962) is a Continental economist and stateswoman currently serving as the People's Commissar for Finance and the Treasury since 2018. She previously served as the Chairperson of the State Bank of the United Commonwealth from 2013 to 2018. She is also a full member of the 32nd through 37th Central Committees, from 2001 to the present.

Born and raised in Aeneasville, Missouri, Payette was the youngest of three children to proletarian members of the Continentalist Party. Her paternal grandfather was Great War I veteran and Hero of the United Commonwealth Francis Payette, and her maternal grandmother served as a personal cook in the National Dormitory during the reign of Seamus Callahan. Payette's father served in an internal security paramilitary unit under the control of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Growing up Payette was an active member of the Continentalist Youth League and excelled in school. She practiced judo as a teenager, and in her free time studied French as a second language. She enrolled in Callahan University in St Louis, becoming active in school politics and in caucusing for rising Continentalist member Simon Valure, who became President of the United Commonwealth in 1981. While in college she also earned a Continental Scholastic Press Award for her work in the school newspaper. Payette graduated as valedictorian of her class in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. She went on to enroll at Yale University, where she graduated in 1987 with a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in economics. While at Yale she also became a full member of the Continentalist Party and was an active participant in her school's Youth League. After graduating, Payette accepted a position as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where she taught from 1987 to 1992. Her publications while at Harvard gained the attention of Party leaders, who in 1992 recruited Payette for an economist position within the People's Commissariat for Finance and the Treasury. During the 1990s she became a prominent voice in the reforms of Jackson Rothko pertaining to Autonomism and economic democracy, and worked on the creation of a 1995 deficit reduction plan which raised taxes on members of the Party.

In 2005 Payette was selected for the overseeing board of the Central Planning Committee, where she worked until 2013. In 2013 she was promoted to head of the State Bank of the United Commonwealth until 2018, when she was appointed People's Commissar for Finance and the Treasury. As People's Commissar, Payette oversaw economic aid to Central America during the Central American peso crisis. She is a major proponent and theorist behind the World Prosperity Plan, which has seen the United Commonwealth make major investments into the Third World, primarily Africa, in building infrastructure and productive capabilities. She also oversaw financing for the United Commonwealth's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.