WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will replace Gene Sperling, his chief economic adviser and West Wing workaholic, with Jeffrey Zients, a top aide who has filled in as acting budget director and who led a White House effort to streamline government.

Zients would replace Sperling as director of Obama’s National Economic Council, a post Sperling held for nearly three years, serving as Obama’s economic whisperer during difficult fiscal wrangles with Congress. Sperling plans to leave Jan. 1