The battle for the nomination as CEO of Goldman Sachs is coming to a close: signs are that the next boss at the mighty U.S. investment bank will be a man who loves playing the DJ in his spare time.
Harvey Schwartz and David Solomon have shared the duties of the chief operating officer at New York investment bank Goldman Sachs for the past year. The COO position is the place where future CEOs are being prepared for their next career step.
At Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein has been at the helm for the past dozen years and is expected to withdraw in due course. Now, it looks as if Solomon (pictured left) is the man who is in line for the prestigious job. Goldman Sachs on Monday said that Schwartz was to depart as co-COO in April.
Of course, it has yet to be seen whether Blankfein will actually retire as soon as expected. He commented a recent story about his departure on Twitter: «It’s the WSJ’s announcement --- not mine. I feel like Huck Finn listening to his own eulogy.»
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Solomon joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as one of the few partners coming from the outside world. The political scientist, 56, managed the investment banking business of Goldman for ten years before his appointment as COO. Previously, he was in charge of the financing group.
Before joining Goldman, Solomon was a banker at Bear Stearns and Solomon Brothers. At both companies he was responsible for junk bonds.
... and DJ D-Sol
There is – of course – more to Solomon than the career banker. He has an unexpected hobby: he frequently does a show as DJ D-Sol, where women clad in bikinis dance to his tunes.
He is convinced that having a broad specter of interests will help in keeping a sound work-live-balance. Which in turn helps getting on with your career: the message is one directed at the younger generation within the bank which ought to follow to Solomon’s example.
The banker is also a connoisseur of fine wines – something that seems to have caught the eye of one of his assistants earlier this year: according to «Bloomberg», the assistant misappropriated bottles worth $1.2 million from the cellar of his boss.
