Jerome Powell
Chairman at the Federal Reserve
Last year's rank: 2
Jerome Powell’s days leading the Federal Reserve might be numbered, but his impact on the commercial real estate industry has been — and will be — long-lasting.
Powell, Fed chairman since February 2018, responded to inflationary pressures with 11 interest rate hikes out of 12 board meetings from March 2022 to July 2023, before pausing increases for the next 14 months. The central bank then changed course with cuts of 100 basis points in its final three meetings of 2024 starting in September, but has held borrowing conditions firm so far in 2025 despite pressure from President Donald Trump to cut further.
“The Federal Reserve chairman plays a pivotal role in shaping the environment for commercial real estate,” said Sam Chandan, director of New York University’s Chen Institute for Global Real Estate Finance. “Although he does not act alone, his stewardship of interest rates, liquidity conditions, and investor risk tolerance gives him outsized influence over capital costs, asset pricing and market stability. For CRE investors and operators alike, monetary policy decisions are not peripheral considerations, but central determinants of valuation, leverage and transaction activity.”
Trump, who appointed Powell during his first presidential term, has repeatedly bashed the Fed chair since assuming office again in January, saying he had power to remove Powell before backing off the threat. Powell’s second term expires in January, but he hasn’t let unknowns about his future get in the way of his policy decisions as the Fed tries to navigate a balancing act between combating inflation and preventing a sharp economic downturn with markets rattled since Trump announced large-scale tariffs in early April.
Two days after Trump won a second term, Powell was asked about concerns of him harming the Fed’s independence and he answered thusly: “I’m not going to get into any of the political things here today.”
On March 19, after the Fed paused interest rates for a second straight meeting, Powell was asked again about Trump’s threat to Fed independence, and he said, “I did answer that question in this very room some time ago, and I have no desire to change that answer.”
However much longer Powell lasts in the Fed chair position, he will likely continue to stay above the fray — and the CRE industry will be listening closely to his every word.
