Goldman Shakes Up Management Committee
Wall Street giant also creates committees overseeing banking and markets
Goldman Sachs GS 1.04%increase; green up pointing triangle is shuffling its management committee, in the latest indication of the power dynamics at the Wall Street giant.
Firm veterans Alison Mass and George Lee have left the group, which comprises the heads of the bank’s main divisions and other top executives.
Goldman is also creating two new committees to help oversee investment banking and markets, according to people familiar with the matter. Senior executives have contacted roughly a dozen bankers in recent days inviting them to join the group that will work on strategic initiatives in investment banking, while similar conversations have occurred for the new markets committee.
Chief Executive David Solomon and President John Waldron have been in a monthslong process to determine whether to change the membership of the management committee.
Contenders to join it currently include Will Bousquette, chief operating officer of asset and wealth management, and Kathleen Connolly, global director of internal audit, some of the people said.
“Final decisions haven’t been made and no one has yet been asked to join the management committee,” said Tony Fratto, a Goldman spokesman.
Mass will remain chair of investment banking at Goldman and Lee will remain co-head of the office of applied innovation, Fratto said.
Roughly two dozen executives currently sit on Goldman’s management committee.
The new investment-banking and markets committees will be led by Dan Dees and Ashok Varadhan, respectively, co-heads of the global banking and markets division.
Change is afoot in the top echelons of Goldman. Jim Esposito said this week that he is planning to leave Goldman after nearly 30 years. Esposito, the other co-head of global banking and markets, aspired to be president or CEO of Goldman. Solomon, who had been under pressure from Goldman partners who disagreed with the firm’s expansion in consumer lending and other issues, has indicated to top Goldman executives that he isn’t planning on stepping down soon, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Goldman bankers are paying close attention to committee invites and executive changes as a sign of whose power and influence is rising and whose is falling.
The invitations have been met with mixed emotions. Some see the invites optimistically, an indication that they are the next generation of leaders within their divisions. Others see it as a consolation prize, a sign that they won’t make the management committee. Meanwhile, some executives are miffed that their co-heads have been asked to join the new committees and they haven’t.
People familiar with the matter say that among those invited to join the investment-banking committee are Vivek Bantwal, Iain Drayton, Stephan Feldgoise, Pete Lyon, Anthony Gutman, Matt McClure, Kim Posnett, Suhail Sikhtian and Marshall Smith. Beth Hammack, a co-head of the global financing group who is currently on the management committee, was also invited to join.
The moves are expected to be a subject of chatter at the partners meeting that Goldman is holding this coming week in Miami.