Stephanie Cohen, head of Goldman Sachs’ Platform Solutions, is taking a leave of absence, according to an internal memo seen Friday by The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.
Cohen, who oversees the lender’s credit card partnerships with Apple and General Motors, transaction banking and installment-lending fintech GreenSky, is stepping away to focus on her family, she wrote.
“As some of you are aware, the past year has brought some challenges for my family,” Cohen wrote in the memo, according to the Financial Times. “While I have done my best to balance the important work we do here with my life at home, I have made the decision that taking some time away from work to focus on my family is the best choice.”
Philip Berlinski, the bank’s treasurer, and Ericka Leslie, chief administrative officer, will take over Cohen’s responsibility in her absence, the publications reported.
Cohen’s leave comes at a time when Goldman is reeling from more than $3 billion lost since 2020 in the segment she leads.
Cohen took the helm of the newly minted business Platform Solutions in October, when Goldman reorganized, combining its flagship investment banking and trading businesses into one unit while joining asset and wealth management into another.
Goldman’s retail banking platform, Marcus, split into two groups, and Platform Solutions houses a subset of Marcus’ business that dealt with corporate clients.
“We look forward to welcoming Stephanie back, when she is ready,” Goldman CEO David Solomon and COO John Waldron wrote in an email sent across the organization Friday.
Some turmoil
Goldman has seen some shakeups surrounding Marcus this year. In January, Swati Bhatia, head of Marcus and co-CEO of GreenSky, stepped down from her role to become an advisory director. The development came less than a week after Solomon confirmed layoffs, affecting 3,200 employees might could have an outsized impact on Marcus. In February, Peeyush Nahar, Goldman’s global head of consumer business, left the bank and took an advisory role, as well.
But the right-sizing isn’t done. Goldman plans to cut roughly 250 jobs in the coming weeks, including partners and managing directors, according to sources familiar with the matter.
And the bank is exploring sale options for GreenSky, a platform for home improvement it bought for $2.24 billion last year. The lender might take a write-down on the $500 million of goodwill or the premium it paid above the asset’s book value, Waldron told investors at a conference last week, Reuters reported.
Cohen is the only woman executive to lead one of Goldman’s three central business units. She joined Goldman Sachs 1999 in the mergers-and-acquisitions division, becoming the chief strategy officer in 2018 and later climbing to co-lead Goldman’s global consumer and wealth-management business. Cohen is also a member of the bank’s management committee.
“This break will allow me to be the best I can be for Goldman Sachs upon my return, which is something I have taken pride in my entire career,” Cohen noted in her memo, according to The Wall Street Journal.
