Working her way through DePaul University, Miriam Santos is one of a few Hispanic women elected to citywide office in a major U.S city. She is also the first woman, first Hispanic and youngest person ever elected treasurer of Chicago. Despite falling out with Mayor Richard Daley, who appointed her treasurer in 1989 and then attempted to have her removed, Santos has proved highly successful in taking on Daley’s good ol’ boys’ club and getting re-elected time after time. One of the most politically powerful females in the country at that time, Santos sat behind a massive mahogany desk in a high-backed pink leather chair in Chicago’s City Hall deciding on how the nation’s third largest city will invest $80 billion in board of education and municipal funds.