Lloyd Blankfein

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Lloyd Craig Blankfein (born September 15, 1954) is an American business executive. He is the CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs. He assumed this position upon the May 2006 nomination of former CEO Henry Paulson to United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Biography

Early life

Lloyd Blankfein was born in the Bronx borough of New York City, to a Jewish family, and reared in the Linden Houses, a New York City Housing Authority project in the East New York section of Brooklyn.[1][2] His father was a clerk with the U.S. Postal Service branch in the Manhattan borough of New York City and his mother was a receptionist.[3][4] As a boy, he worked as a concession vendor at Yankee Stadium.[4] He received primary and secondary education in the public schools of the New York City Department of Education, and was the valedictorian at Thomas Jefferson High School in 1971. He attended Harvard College, where he lived in Winthrop House, majored in History[5][6] and earned his A.B. in 1975.[4] In 1978, Blankfein received a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.[4]

Career

Before joining Goldman, Blankfein worked for Proskauer Rose[7] and then Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine.

In 1982, he joined Goldman's commodities trading arm, J. Aron & Co., as a precious metals salesman in its London office.

Blankfein managed or co-managed the Goldman Sachs Currency and Commodities Division from 1994 to 1997.[8] He served as Vice Chairman from April 2002 until January 2004, and was in charge of the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Division (FICC) and Equities Division.[8]

He has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since 2006. He earned a total of $54.4 million in 2006 as one of the highest paid executives on Wall Street. His bonus reflected the performance of Goldman Sachs, which reported record net earnings of $9.5 billion. The compensation included a cash bonus of $27.3 million, with the rest paid in stock and options. While CEO of Goldman Sachs Group in 2007, Blankfein earned a total compensation of $53,965,418, which included a base salary of $600,000, a cash bonus of $26,985,474, stocks granted of $15,542,756 and options granted of $10,453,031.[9] His 2014 compensation was $24 million.[10]

In 2009, the Financial Times named Blankfein its "2009 Person of the Year", stating, "His bank has stuck to its strengths, unashamedly taken advantage of the low interest rates and diminished competition resulting from the crisis to make big trading profits."[11] Critics of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street have taken issue with those practices.[12] Taking a different view, Forbes listed Blankfein as one of "The Most Outrageous CEOs of 2009."[13]

On January 13, 2010, Blankfein testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he considered Goldman Sachs's role as primarily a market maker, not a creator of the product (i.e., subprime mortgage-related securities).[14] Blankfein testified before Congress in April 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He said that Goldman Sachs had no moral or legal obligation to inform its clients it was betting against the products which they were buying from Goldman Sachs because it was not acting in a fiduciary role.[15] The company was sued on April 16, 2010, by the SEC for the fraudulent selling of a synthetic CDO tied to subprime mortgages.[16] With Blankfein at the helm, Goldman has also been criticized "by lawmakers and pundits for issues from its pay practices to its role in helping Greece mask the size of its debts".[16]

In April 2011, a Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report accused Goldman Sachs of misleading clients about complex mortgage-related investments in 2007, and Senator Carl Levin alleged that Blankfein misled Congress, though no perjury charges have been brought against Blankfein.[17][18][19] In August of the same year, Goldman confirmed that Blankfein had hired high-profile defense lawyer Reid Weingarten,[20] who had previously represented executives including former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and former Enron accounting officer Richard Causey.[21] Two months later, in November 2011, Blankfein was listed as #43 on Forbes Magazine's List of The World's Most Powerful People.

In March 2012, a former Goldman executive, Greg Smith, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs", in which he heavily criticized the firm's top leadership and Blankfein in particular."[22] Smith's op-ed was criticized by many, particularly because he worked at Goldman for 12 years before deciding to quit due to moral objections.[22]

Politics

Blankfein contributes to mostly Democratic party candidates and donated $4,600 to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2007.[23] He self-identifies as a Democrat.[24] Goldman employees and their relatives contributed almost a million dollars to Barack Obama's presidential campaign—making it "the company from which Obama raised the most money in 2008"—and Blankfein has visited the White House 14 times as of January 2013.[25] However, Goldman gave substantially more to Republicans than Democrats in 2012.[26] Former Goldman executives who hold senior positions in the Obama administration include Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Robert Hormats, the undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs.[27] With regard to his personal political views, Blankfein has described himself as "a registered Democrat, and a Rockefeller Republican ... conservative on fiscal issues and more liberal on social issues".[28] He is a supporter of gay marriage and has been a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.[29] In May 2012, Blankfein stated that his stance led Goldman Sachs to lose some clients.[30]

On April 7, 2009, he recommended guidelines to overhaul executive compensation. According to The New York Times, he said that lessons from the global financial crisis included the need to "apply basic standards to how we compensate people in our industry".[31] In November 2009, he declared in an interview, as a banker: "I'm doing God's work."[32] Several days later he indicated that he regretted that remark and said he had intended it as a joke. He also apologized on behalf of Goldman Sachs to the public for unspecified "things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret" and which contributed to the financial and economic crisis. The firm announced a 10,000 small businesses initiative, committing $500 million to aid American small businesses.[33]

On July 18, 2012, he commented about the effect of the Libor scandal on the financial system, "There was this huge hole to dig out of in terms of getting trust back and now it's just that much deeper." [34] The same day he met Jack Lew, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, and over lunch at the Economic Club of Washington was asked whether he had any aspiration to go into government like predecessors Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin. "I have aspirations to be desired," he replied.[35]

Philanthropy

Blankfein serves on the board of a number of charities and organisations, including:

Personal life

Blankfein is married to the former Laura Jacobs. The couple have two sons, Alexander and Jonathan, and a daughter, Rachel.[4][38][39] Alexander married in April 2013; he and his wife are pursuing M.B.A.s at Harvard Business School. Alexander is to become a consultant at Bain & Company in September 2013.[39][40][41][42] Blankfein's younger son, Jonathan, graduated from Harvard University and works as an analyst at Goldman Sachs.[39][43] His daughter Rachel is now a student at Harvard University.[39] On September 22, 2015, Goldman Sachs advised via their Twitter feed that Blankfein has been diagnosed with a highly treatable form of lymphoma.

Blankfein and his wife reside primarily on the Upper West Side, but they also maintain a home in Bridgehampton, New York, as well as another house, set on 2.65 acres, in Sagaponack, New York.[4]

References

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External links

Business positions
Preceded by Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
2006–present		 Succeeded by
incumbent
  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 James Nye, Inside Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's new $32.5 million Hamptons estate...bought even though he still hasn't sold his other $14 million Long Island home, The Daily Mail, December 6, 2012
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ CEO Compensation for Lloyd C. Blankfein , Equilar.com
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Gapper, John "Master of risk who did God's work for Goldman Sachs but won it little love" Financial Times. Retrieved December 25, 2009.
  12. ↑ "Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Named Financial Times Person Of The Year". The Huffington Post. Retrieved December 25, 2009.
  13. ↑ Coster, Helen "The Biggest CEO Outrages Of 2009 - This year's C-Suite Hall of Shame". Forbes. Retrieved December 25, 2009.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Goldman Shares Tumble on SEC Fraud Allegations"
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Witkowski, Wallace,"Goldman Sachs says Blankfein hires Weingarten: WSJ", MarketWatch, August 22, 2011. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Goldman Sachs Succeeds Where Gore Fails. Washington Free Beacon. January 3, 2013.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Greg Gordon "Goldman's White House connections raise eyebrows". McClatchy Newspapers. April 21, 2010.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Interview with the Sunday Times Archived January 6, 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  33. ↑ Goldman offers $500m apology for crisis, Financial Times, November 18, 2009.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Julia La Roche, Hey Look, Lloyd Blankfein's Kids Are On Instagram, Business Insider, July 27, 2012
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 39.2 39.3 Harvard Alumni
  40. ↑ Cristina Ros and Alexander Blankfein, The New York Times, March 17, 2013
  41. ↑ William Alden, A Blankfein Wedding, The New York Times, March 18, 2013
  42. ↑ Julia La Roche, Photos From Inside Lloyd Blankfein's Son's Beautiful Miami Wedding, Business Insider, March 18, 2013
  43. ↑ John Carney, Meet Jonathan Blankfein, Lloyd's Son, And The Newest Member Of Goldman's Analyst Class, Business Insider, February 2, 2010
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