IMF eying top Treasury official for No. 2 post
The appointment would place a Trump ally near the top of the institution at a time when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been calling for reforms.
The seal of the International Monetary Fund is seen at the headquarters building. | Getty Images
The International Monetary Fund is likely to select Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s chief of staff, Dan Katz, as its next No. 2 official, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Katz’s appointment would place an ally of President Donald Trump near the top of the international institution, at a time when Bessent has been calling for reforms.
Katz has been an active participant in the Treasury Department’s international policy agenda, including serving as a top lieutenant to Bessent on negotiations with China on trade matters and with Ukraine on critical minerals.
His nomination could be announced as soon as Friday, according to one person who, like the others, was granted anonymity to discuss private personnel deliberations.
Bessent has criticized the IMF and World Bank for devoting too much time to “work on climate change, gender, and social issues” while failing to hold countries to which it lends money accountable for implementing economic reforms.
Although Katz would continue to serve in his current role until being approved by the IMF, the departure is yet another loss at the top ranks of Treasury. The department has also seen the departures of Michael Faulkender, who was deputy secretary, and Billy Long, who was head of the Internal Revenue Service.
Treasury declined to comment.
Katz, a onetime senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, served as a senior adviser at Treasury during Trump’s first term and also previously consulted for Bessent’s former macro hedge fund and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
He would replace Gita Gopinath as first deputy managing director at the IMF, where she was also previously chief economist. Unlike Gopinath, who has a Ph.D. in economics, Katz is trained as a lawyer with a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a J.D. from New York University.
