Bryan Mena is a U.S. economy writer for CNN Business, covering the Federal Reserve and macroeconomic data. His coverage of the economy includes inflation, the labor market, and regional economic trends.

Mena began his career as an economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where he covered economic indicators and wrote about regional economies. He wrote about the strong labor markets of major cities such as Raleigh, N.C. and Birmingham, Ala. and he did a story about the economic effects of pandemic-era travel restrictions on the U.S.-Mexico border. He also covered tragedies like the collapse of a condominium building in Surfside, Fla. in 2021 and a mass shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va. in 2022.

As a student journalist, Mena won an award from the College Media Association for a story he wrote about femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico in 2019.

He was born and raised in El Paso, Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border and he graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He also has an associate degree in accounting, business and economics from El Paso Community College.