City profiles

Steven Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross Who will President-elect Trump choose for his top economic roles? Reports that Jamie Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan, had been approached to become treasury secretary have been dismissed, said The Daily Telegraph. Since Trump once called Dimon “the worst banker in the United States” – and Dimon returned the favour with “thinly veiled attacks” on Trump’s campaign – it may not have been the most harmonious relationship, said the FT. No surprise, perhaps, that Trump appears to be looking closer to home. This week, it emerged that two leading New York investors, Steven Mnuchin (pictured) and Wilbur Ross, are on his shortlist for the roles of treasury and commerce secretaries. Both are “pragmatists and free marketeers”, and long-term Trump supporters.

Ross, 78, a “softly spoken” private equity investor, is “an old Wall Street hand” who specialises in snapping up distressed assets; he is considered “a bit of a cowboy” in some quarters. He served as an economic adviser throughout the campaign and was one of the main articulators of Trump’s trade policy. Mnuchin, 53, also “joined Team Trump early” as finance chairman, and is a long-term business associate of Trump’s. A former Goldman Sachs partner, Mnuchin went on to found Dune Capital Management and “scored big” in the restructuring of Indymac bank after the 2008 crisis. Latterly, he has been financing Hollywood movies. Goldman colleagues call him a tough, ruthless operator who is not particularly adept at “navigating relationships”.