These people impacted the markets and your money the most this year
By MarketWatchNovember 1, 2022
MarketWatch has assembled a list of 50 people whose actions, work and opinions are impacting markets and your money.
The list includes investors, CEOs, policymakers, crypto players and influencers, and was based on MarketWatch readers’ nominations for who they thought influenced markets the most this year.
MarketWatch reporters also contributed ideas, and MarketWatch’s editors crafted the final list.
Here are 10 of the noteworthy people on the MarketWatch 50.
Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chair
• He’s the first Fed chairman in 50 years not to hold a Ph.D. in economics.
• Before entering public service, he was a partner at the Carlyle Group.
• He was slow to respond to inflation, with his Fed injecting liquidity in the markets as recently as March.
Elon Musk, Tesla & SpaceX CEO
• He’s the wealthiest person in the world.
• SpaceX sent the first all-civilian crew to the International Space Station.
• Tesla’s Texas factory is the second-biggest building in the world by volume.
Cathie Wood, Ark Investment Management CEO
• She is a devout Christian, and her firm is named after the Ark of the Covenant.
• ARK closed its transparency ETF in July after only eight months.
• Since 2020, investors shorting Ark funds have made an estimated $3.3 billion.
Orlando Bravo, Thoma Bravo CEO
• He’s the first Puerto Rican-born billionaire.
• Thoma Bravo has acquired or invested in more than 380 companies and manages $122 billion.
• When he was young, he was a top-40 junior tennis player.
Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO
• He has a degree from MIT in physics.
• FTX is valued at $32 billion.
• More than $2 billion is traded on FTX per day.
Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president
• She was the first woman to be finance and economy minister of France, head of the International Monetary Fund and ECB president.
• The ECB’s capital stock amounts to nearly €11 billion.
• She was slow to realize the severity of rising inflation and didn’t reverse years of bond buying and negative rates until June.
Abigail Johnson, Fidelity Investments CEO
• With an estimated 24.5% stake in Fidelity, she’s worth $19.4 billion.
• Fidelity’s daily average trades total 3.1 million.
• She’s the third member of her family to run Fidelity, which was founded by her grandfather in 1946.
Larry Summers, Harvard University professor
• He was Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton and head of the National Economic Council under Obama.
• A call from him was reportedly key to persuading Joe Manchin to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act this summer.
• He was pounding the table in 2021 with out-of-consensus inflation warnings.
Adebayo Ogunlesi, Global Infrastructure Partners CEO
• Companies in GIP’s portfolio bring in $61 billion in revenue annually.
• President Biden appointed him to lead his National Infrastructure Advisory Council.
• After law school, he clerked for Thurgood Marshall.
Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco CEO
• Aramco has a $2.7 trillion market cap and is the world’s biggest oil producer.
• Since 1965 (for years in which data is available), Aramco has contributed the most of any company to global carbon emissions.
• He oversaw Aramco’s 2019 initial public offering, the biggest IPO ever.