Good morning.
Fortune Senior Editor-at-Massive Shawn Tully filling in for Sheryl at the moment. When Donald Trump introduced yesterday that he was nominating Stephen Miran to fill a emptiness on the Fed’s board of governors, you could possibly be forgiven for asking, Who?
The 41-year-old millennial, who has chaired the Council of Financial Advisors beneath Trump 2.0, is hardly a family identify, even in case you run in economics circles. However as I detailed at the start of the summer time in Fortune for an in-depth profile, Miran has develop into Trump’s high pro-tariff ideologue.
As of this time final 12 months, I wrote, “Miran was a digital unknown in each political and financial circles. He’d labored in a wide range of funding corporations and by no means been a tutorial. He bought on Trump’s radar by authoring a sequence of papers that matched the mindset of the ascendant, pro-tariff contingent within the Republican presidential marketing campaign, together with a now well-known 41-page treatise Miran himself nicknamed ‘the Mar-a-Lago Accord’ that mentioned numerous doable options to closing America’s yawning commerce hole.”
That bought him the nod as chair of the CEA, a place sometimes held by prestigious names plucked from high universities (Ben Bernanke, Jason Furman, Austan Goolsbee) or longtime Washington operatives (Jared Bernstein), or each. As I discussed, “Not one of the dozen famous economists I interviewed for this story had ever met Miran, or heard of him earlier than his ascension to move CEA. In a few circumstances, they fumbled his final identify as “murr-Ann,” as steadily do TV and podcast pundits (proper pronunciation: ‘My-run’).”
As my sources informed me, Miran is a rarity, a extremely skilled economist who is aware of all of the jargon, has absorbed the peer research, brings mental heft, and makes a logical-sounding case for Trump’s stunningly contrarian recreation plan. “To say the least, it’s a comparatively small pool of PhD economists who’re financial nationalists. That’s a blinding actuality. However Steve is one,” says somebody outdoors the administration who is aware of him.
You may learn the entire story and listen to from Miran himself, within the story right here. However on condition that Miran, if confirmed, shall be sharing the desk with Trump nemesis and Fed chair Jerome Powell, one factor is for certain: CEOs, CFOs, and anybody watching the economic system carefully shall be listening to the identify Stephen Miran fairly a bit this 12 months.
Shawn Tully
Leaderboard
Some notable strikes this week:
Kevin D. Prepare dinner was appointed CFO of Bumble Inc. (Nasdaq: BMBL), efficient Aug. 12. Prepare dinner succeeds Ronald J. Fior, who’s stepping down from his function as interim CFO and can serve in an advisory function by the tip of August. Prepare dinner brings greater than 30 years of monetary administration expertise to Bumble, having served most lately because the CFO at Cloudera, Inc. He has additionally held roles because the SVP of finance, company growth and investor relations at Cloudera and because the VP of strategic finance, company and enterprise growth at Barracuda Networks, Inc.
Costin Corneanu was named EVP and CFO of Amtrak, efficient Aug. 4. Corneanu, who joined the corporate in 2020, has been serving as deputy CFO since January. He succeeds Tracie Winbigler, who will retire from Amtrak on Jan. 1, 2026. Till then, Winbigler will stay in her EVP function as chief transformation officer. Earlier than becoming a member of Amtrak, Corneanu spent eight years at Spirit Airways and 4 years at US Airways.
Eric Christel was appointed EVP and CFO of Bloomin’ Manufacturers, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLMN), guardian firm of manufacturers together with Outback Steakhouse. Christel joined the corporate on Aug. 4 for a transition interval and can assume the CFO function on Sept. 8. Present CFO Michael Healy will assume the newly created function of EVP, technique and transformation. Christel brings almost 20 years of expertise, together with his function as SVP and CFO of The Campbell’s Firm’s Snacks Division and a number of other management roles at PepsiCo.
Michael Graham was appointed CFO of ZoomInfo (Nasdaq: GTM), a business-to-business database and intelligence platform, efficient Aug. 1. O’Brien has served as interim CFO since September 2024. Earlier than that, he held varied roles on the firm since December 2017, most lately as VP of FP&A since 2023. Previous to becoming a member of the corporate, O’Brien held accounting positions at RainKing Options and Kaseya.
Jennifer Fall Jung was appointed CFO and secretary of Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPWH), efficient Aug. 18. Fall Jung has over 25 years of expertise, beforehand serving as EVP and CFO of The Duckhorn Portfolio, Inc. and CFO of Funko, Inc., a publicly traded client items firm.
Huge Deal
An evaluation by S&P International Market Intelligence finds that U.S. company bankruptcies in July reached their highest month-to-month complete since 2020. Massive private and non-private firm chapter filings rose to 71 in July, up from a revised 66 in June, marking the best single-month determine since July 2020. 12 months-to-date chapter filings totaled 446 by the tip of July, probably the most for this seven-month interval since 2010, in line with the report. The information consists of public firms with money owed or belongings of not less than $2 million, and personal firms with not less than $10 million in belongings or liabilities on the time of submitting.
Going deeper
Listed below are 4 Fortune weekend reads:
“DoorDash is value $100 billion because of dominating U.S. restaurant supply. A a lot bigger alternative is beginning to become visible” by Jason Del Rey
“A vibrant spot for Tesla shareholders: Below Elon Musk’s new $27 billion comp bundle, their destiny is now intertwined together with his” by Shawn Tully
“Palantir’s CTO turned an in a single day billionaire because of hovering inventory—he’s the $411 billion AI agency’s fifth insider to affix the ultra-wealthy membership” by Preston Fore
“Right here’s the one-page memo Warren Buffett despatched to his managers each two years for over 25 years” by Jessica Coacci
Overheard
“I’m fairly specific about ensuring that what goes within the recycle bin really is within the bin. Even at our home, we now have two women, 22 and 20, and so they’re fairly good about it, too.”
—Jim Fish, CEO of the Fortune 500 firm WM (Waste Administration), stated in an interview throughout an episode of Fortune‘s Management Subsequent podcast.
