Jerome Hayden "Jay" Powell (জেরোম হেইডেন "জে" পাওয়েল) is an American investment banker and lawyer who has been the 16th chair of the Federal Reserve since 2018.

A native of Washington, D.C., Powell graduated from Princeton University and the Georgetown University Law Center. After working as an attorney for five years, he began a career in investment banking and private equity during the mid-1980s, eventually becoming a partner at the Carlyle Group in 1997. He left Carlyle in 2005 to launch Severn Capital Partners, a boutique private equity firm. He was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center from 2010 to 2012.

Jerome Powell was born on February 4, 1953, in Washington, D.C. to Patricia (née Hayden) and Jerome Powell Sr., a lawyer in private practice. His maternal grandfather, James J. Hayden, was Dean of the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America and later a lecturer at Georgetown Law School. He has five siblings: Susan, Matthew, Tia, Libby, and Monica.

Powell graduated from Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit university-preparatory school, in 1971. He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Princeton University in 1975, where his senior thesis was titled "South Africa: Forces for Change." After spending a year as a legislative assistant to Republican U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania, Powell attended the Georgetown University Law Center. He was editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Journal and graduated in 1979 with a Juris Doctor.

Powell married Elissa Leonard in 1985 at the Episcopal Washington National Cathedral. They have three children and live in Chevy Chase Village, Maryland, where Elissa is chair of the board of managers of the village. In 2010, Powell was on the board of governors of Chevy Chase Club, a country club.

Based on public filings, as of 2019, Powell's net worth was estimated to be in a range between $20 and $55 million. Powell has served on the boards of charitable and educational institutions including DC Prep, a public charter school, the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University, and The Nature Conservancy. He was also a founder of the Center City Consortium, a group of 16 parochial schools in the poorest areas of Washington, D.C.

Powell is a registered Republican and a longtime fan of American rock band the Grateful Dead.