As US Second Lady, Usha Vance will fill a position that is traditionally relegated to the sidelines of White House life, which may well suit a political spouse who has never sought out the limelight.

Yet, according to her friends, the 39-year-old has played anything but a subordinate role in the rapid rise of her husband, US Vice-President-elect JD Vance.

As a hard-working child of immigrants who has moved between the rarefied cloisters of Cambridge, Yale and the Supreme Court to reach the pinnacle of public life, she is for many admirers a living embodiment of the American Dream.