The Massachusetts senator’s associates hold top posts at the White House and at federal agencies handling issues ranging from financial regulation to national security and climate change. The hires have helped assuage progressives concerned Biden isn’t sympathetic to their views, but have set off alarms in the banking and financial sector.

The influx of her staffers and allies into Biden’s orbit has been part of a conscious, multi-year plan by Warren and progressives to zero in on personnel picks when a Democrat next took the White House – an outgrowth of Warren’s belief in the Washington adage that personnel is policy. It is her most tangible imprint on the Biden administration so far, ensuring progressives have seats inside the White House.

Both the No. 2 official at Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, and the top deputy at the National Economic Council, Bharat Ramamurti, trace their Washington roots to Warren. Warren’s allies also hold posts at the National Security Council and at the Treasury, Education, Health and Energy Departments, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the White House office for climate change policy.

“Elizabeth Warren is the progressive politician most obsessed with the dark corners of the executive branch and figuring out how they can be used for tools for progressive outcomes,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project. “Warren has inspired a generation of political operatives who want to turn each and every corner of the executive branch into an engine for progressive outcomes.”

The Biden-Warren relationship now is a key test of whether the party can remain united against Republican attempts to take back the House and Senate in 2022 and the White House two years later...

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain frequently speaks and texts with Warren, according to three people familiar with their exchanges, and she enjoys longstanding ties to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The two women met or spoke by phone 13 times between 2014 and 2017, while Yellen was chair of the Federal Reserve, a relationship that’s continued in the new administration....

Some of Warren’s success in staffing has sprung from ongoing conversations between her and her team and members of Biden’s inner circle over the last several months.
Warren-aligned groups helped with the personnel push, too.

The co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Stephanie Taylor, created a database of potential staff for a nascent Democratic administration. About 50 progressive groups uploaded resumes and expressed support for hundreds of candidates. Shortly after Biden won the election, Taylor’s group handed the database over to his transition team.