Sam Klebanov
Sam Klebanov is a reporter at Morning Brew who covers the finance beat through stories that connect government action, global events, and business decisions to the real economy. He turns complex world news into concise, breezy pieces, translating everything from industrial policy to bed bugs into clear, accessible coverage. His work spans sanctions, trade disputes, corporate strategy, real estate, and consumer trends, with a consistent focus on the economic implications and the numbers behind them.
Global economic policy and geopolitics
Klebanov’s most distinct through-line is his attention to how international politics and government decisions filter into markets and trade.
He has covered Canada’s push to attract C$1 trillion in investment, tracing how large public investment campaigns are pitched to global capital. In his reporting on Iran-backed Houthis seizing a key Red Sea island, he follows the geopolitical story through to its impact on Saudi oil exports and regional energy flows. His coverage of supersized Iran sanctions similarly focuses on the scope of the measures and the timeframes governments give businesses and trading partners to adjust.
He also writes about political theater where it intersects with economic risk, including profiles of candidates such as Count Binface challenging Nigel Farage in a special election that mainstream parties sit out.
Across these pieces, Klebanov’s angle is less personalities and more the consequences: how tariffs, sanctions, and political disruptions alter trade, investment, and corporate planning. He frequently brings in regulatory language and official announcements, reflecting a style that leans on data, legal detail, and government communication rather than opinion.
Corporate strategy, markets, and real estate
Klebanov covers corporate moves and market positioning with an eye to how strategy shows up in earnings, investments, and sector outlooks. His reporting on Accenture highlights surprising revenue growth driven by its role in helping clients implement AI, framing consulting as an industry adapting rather than shrinking in the face of automation. In a piece on Ken Griffin’s multibillion-dollar bet on Miami as a tech hub, he follows the flow of philanthropic capital and the decision to fund a new campus there as a signal about the city’s future economic positioning.
Coverage of Oracle’s search for a way to delay data center lease payments examines contractual and financial risk around long-term infrastructure projects.
Real estate is another recurring lane, where he connects property and local costs to broader financial trends. He has written about youth sports facilities becoming increasingly upscale, noting how one owner describes them as “recession-proof,” with spending on children’s aspirations among the last things families cut. In a separate story on Miami now being more expensive than New York City, he tracks how wealthy transplants drive up prices for housing and restaurants, turning lifestyle migration into an economic narrative.
Taken together, these pieces show him moving fluidly between corporate balance sheets, capital projects, and local real estate dynamics while keeping the focus on affordability, investment, and returns.
Media, rankings, and consumer culture
Klebanov regularly explores the business side of media and culture, treating attention and taste as economic forces.
He has covered Substack as “media’s cool kid,” examining how high-profile writers flock to the platform and what its surge in readership means for traditional outlets. His work on IMAX’s challenges looks at the company’s problems through the lens of shifting audience behavior and the economics of exhibition. He has also written about Morning Brew’s own growth and milestones, documenting subscriber numbers and expansion as a case study in digital media scaling.
Consumer regulation and status signaling are part of that portfolio as well.
In a piece on the rules that distinguish sparkling wine from Champagne, he explains the French legal framework and international recognition that set boundaries for branding and pricing. His coverage of MIT overtaking Princeton in university rankings treats education prestige as an asset, focusing on how rankings reshuffle perceptions and competition.
Beyond Morning Brew, his work republished on Fortune has included a story on the “froyopocalypse” ending, with Gen Z swarming frozen yogurt shops again, showing his willingness to treat food and retail trends as economic signals rather than lifestyle curiosities. He also writes about the bizarre YouTube series that Gen Alpha obsesses over as potential source material for film or TV, making clear that he sees cultural phenomena through their commercial and financial potential.
Across these subjects, Klebanov’s coverage stays consistent: culture, rankings, and consumer habits matter because they drive revenue, investment, and valuation.
Labor markets and the broader economy
Within the finance beat, Klebanov tracks core economic indicators and how they shape policy.
He has reported on a surprise US job market slowdown, noting how softer hiring strengthens the case for keeping interest rates steady. His stories on tariffs and retaliatory measures, including Canada’s 50% duties on US goods in response to US tariffs on Canadian exports, connect trade policy decisions to jobs, inflation, and business confidence.
By pairing labor data with trade and investment stories, he presents a composite picture of how the economy is evolving rather than treating each issue in isolation.
Across beats that include government, international, business, real estate, and media, Klebanov’s distinguishing trait is his habit of stitching together official policy, corporate moves, and cultural shifts into concise, finance-focused reporting. He writes in a straightforward, newsletter-friendly tone while grounding his work in data, legal frameworks, and concrete business outcomes.
4 more finance journalists.
Abigail Summerville
Abigail Summerville brings a leveraged finance background to her work covering consumer and retail mergers and acquisitions for Reuters. She reports on deal-making and capital markets across food, beverages, spirits, personal care, skincare, bath products and pet food. Her stories focus on transaction terms, ownership stakes, valuation, debt structures and funding sources. She often breaks news on potential sales and strategic reviews before formal announcements. Notable coverage includes Sazerac’s acquisition of Au Vodka, Blackstone’s exploration of a ZO Skin Health sale, CVC’s efforts to sell the parent of Dr Teal’s, and Colgate-Palmolive’s planned divestitures. She also covers consumer IPOs, including Jersey Mike’s and Black Rock Coffee, and co-writes Wall Street market reports. She joined Reuters in 2022 after three years covering leveraged finance and primary debt markets.
Adekunle Agbetiloye
Adekunle Agbetiloye is a senior reporter who connects capital flows, hard numbers and energy transition to the wider African economy. He works at Business Insider Africa, covering how money, technology and energy reshape economic growth, jobs and living conditions. His beat spans the African economy, technology, energy transition, climate change, startups and critical minerals, with a focus on concrete deals and data-led stories. He reports on African startup funding cycles, sovereign wealth funds, billionaire investors, multilateral and private investment programs, energy and power markets, Bitcoin mining, and economic policy choices. His work follows how governments finance spending, manage debt and respond to social pressure, and how sector snapshots and health and development metrics reveal links between macro indicators, corporate strategy and everyday costs.
Aimee Picchi
Aimee Picchi connects Social Security, retirement programs and economic policy directly to the financial security of ordinary Americans, showing how macro decisions hit household budgets. She is associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch at CBS News, covering business and personal finance with clear, accessible explanations of complex money issues. Her core beat is Social Security and retirement, interest rates and inflation, and how policy, markets and company strategies affect workers, retirees, savers and investors. She reports on benefit adequacy, looming Social Security cuts, COLA changes, Federal Reserve rate decisions, fuel costs, trade tensions and labor’s share of income, always framing coverage around pocketbook impacts. Her background includes retirement reporting fellowships, prior staff reporting on technology, media and business, an Institutional Investor book on affluent investors, and freelance work for national outlets. She also writes science fiction and fantasy and is a Nebula Award finalist.
Alex Harring
Alex Harring turns fast-moving market, economic and corporate developments into clear pre-market briefings that show what will matter when U.S. trading opens. He is a markets and economics reporter for CNBC’s digital platforms and writes Morning Squawk, a flagship daily newsletter that gives readers five key things to know before the stock market opens. His beat spans financial markets, investing, consumer trends and the U.S. economy, with coverage of central bank decisions, inflation, corporate strategy, sector moves and geopolitical shocks. He focuses on how policy, data and earnings shape equities, interest rates, currencies and investor positioning, linking price action with underlying drivers in real time and in reported features. Harring’s background reporting on corporate news, business and the economy across print, digital, broadcast and streaming informs his habit of connecting markets, companies and geopolitics in one frame.