Cleveland-Cliffs adds board director

Ron Bloom has been appointed to the Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. board of directors, effective immediately. The Cleveland-based steelmaking and iron mining firm refers to Bloom, who becomes its 11^th board member, as a “renowned private equity executive, labor and political advisor.”

Bloom, a graduate of Harvard Business School, started his career as an investment banker at New York-based Lazard, a firm he later rejoined as vice chairman. After his first tenure at Lazard, Bloom served as a special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers (USW) from 1996 to 2009.

In 2002, Bloom played a role in the sale of the assets of the former LTV Steel and Bethlehem Steel to the International Steel Group (ISG), the assets of which are now part of Cleveland-Cliffs. Bloom also was involved when the USW successfully used the union’s successorship rights in their Basic Labor Agreement to block the sale of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel to a foreign buyer in 2007, according to Cliffs. (The overseas bidder was Brazil-based Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, or CSN.)

Starting in 2009, Bloom served in a number of roles within the Obama, Trump and Biden presidential administrations, including senior advisor to the secretary of the treasury on Obama's Task Force on the Automotive Industry from 2009 to 2011, where he played a role in the reorganizations of General Motors and Chrysler.

He served as assistant to the president for manufacturing in 2012 and later was appointed to the U.S. Postal Service board of governors, a position he held from 2019 to 2021 and which included a stint as board chair.

Bloom currently is a managing partner and vice chair in the Private Equity Group of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management. In that role, he is responsible for investment origination, execution and oversight across North America. Bloom also is a partner at Commonweal Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies.

“We are honored to welcome Ron Bloom to our board of directors,” Cliffs President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves says.

“Ron’s distinguished career represents the Cleveland-Cliffs culture perfectly, which includes fierce negotiating skills, fighting for the resilience of American manufacturing and a deep appreciation for organized labor and a thriving middle class. ... We have recently seen a case of stunning disrespect to the wishes of labor in our industry, and Ron Bloom being on our board will ensure that all stakeholders have a voice.”

Presumably, Goncalves is referring to the sale of United States Steel Corp. to Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp., which came after U.S. Steel’s USW workforce had endorsed a competing bid from Cliffs.

According to Cliffs, Bloom will join the Governance & Nominating and Strategy & Sustainability committees of the Cleveland-Cliffs board.