According to sources, once President-elect Javier Milei takes office on December 10, Argentine economist Santiago Bausili will take over as governor of the nation's central bank.
A close supporter of the newly appointed Economy Minister Luis Caputo, Bausili served as Mauricio Macri's undersecretary of finance from 2016 to 2017 before taking over as finance secretary in December 2019.
By assembling a formidable team of mainstream conservative economists to oppose Caputo, who is more in line with market forces, his appointment to the central bank may serve to temper President-elect Milei's more radical libertarian ideas.
In October 2020, Bausili joined Anker, a consulting business based in Buenos Aires, as a partner. This was his most recent position.
Prior to this, Bausili was a director of loan origination at Deutsche Bank, having worked in both New York and Buenos Aires. He was a capital markets and derivatives marketer covering Argentina, Chile, and Peru for more than ten years at JPMorgan.
Milei is staying at a hotel in downtown Buenos Aires, and earlier on Tuesday, Caputo and Bausili were seen arriving.
Milei, who claims that closing the central bank and dollarizing the economy would eventually help curb the nation's excruciating triple-digit inflation, made this pledge both during the campaign and most recently.
Milei had given the impression that he preferred Emilio Ocampo, his primary adviser on dollarization, to lead and shut down the central bank just a few months prior to winning the election.
