Dive Brief:
- Goldman Sachs named John Waldron, its president and chief operating officer, to its board, effective Wednesday.
- The move further cements Waldron’s place alongside CEO David Solomon at the top of the Goldman pecking order, perhaps even hinting at the bank’s succession plan. “It does appear that firmer succession planning is underway,” Stephen Biggar, a banking analyst at Argus Research, told Reuters.
- It’s atypical for a bank to place a member of its C-suite – outside of its CEO – on the board. But it’s not unprecedented for Goldman. Gary Cohn, who served as the bank’s president and COO until 2016, also held a board seat during his tenure. Cohn left the bank to join the first Trump administration.
Dive Insight:
Waldron’s elevation Wednesday is just the latest perk in his rise to prominence. The bank gave him and Solomon each an $80 million retention bonus in January that won’t vest until 2030. Waldron is also one of four Goldman executives subject to the bank’s new carried interest program, which directly ties part of his yearly compensation to efforts to grow Goldman’s third-party alternatives business in competition with private credit.
Waldron will not receive any additional compensation for his board role, nor will he sit on any of the board’s committees, the bank said.
“In John’s new capacity as a director, he will provide important insights into how we are driving execution priorities across the firm to create and sustain long-term value for our shareholders,” said Solomon, who serves as the board’s chair in addition to his role as CEO.
In addition to Waldron, Goldman on Wednesday named KC McClure, a senior finance adviser and former CFO at Accenture, to the bank’s board. McClure will serve on Goldman’s audit, corporate governance and nominating, and risk committees beginning April 1.
Waldron joined Goldman in 2000 in investment banking services and climbed to co-lead the lender’s investment-banking unit before being named COO in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
If Waldron’s appointment is indeed a move toward succession, it would likely indicate a staying of the course for Goldman, which appears to have righted itself in 2024 after, in some investors’ eyes, several years adrift.
The bank reported $14 billion in profit last year after distancing itself from a much-maligned foray into consumer banking. That move proved unpopular enough among insiders that, ahead of Goldman’s cull of 3,200 employees in January 2023, some partners at the bank reportedly considered bringing their concerns about Solomon’s leadership directly to the board. When the rumor mill churned as to possible replacements, Waldron was largely seen as too close to Solomon, from a strategy perspective, to effect measurable change.
However, Waldron’s relative openness has won the praise of analysts — notably, Mike Mayo of Wells Fargo, who said the tenures of previous Goldman CEOs Hank Paulson and Lloyd Blankfein were often marked by silence on earnings calls and a dearth of publicly shared financial targets.
“It wasn’t until John Waldron that I actually had … a good meeting at Goldman Sachs,” Mayo told the Financial Times last year.
