Redeem now - Russell Horwitz has been named David Solomon's new chief of staff at a difficult time for the CEO.
- Horwitz will replace Goldman legend John F. W. Rogers, who will continue to advise the board.
- Here's everything we know about Horwitz and why he returned to Goldman Sachs.
The steady drumbeat of executive departures at Goldman Sachs just took a different tune.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.Russell Horwitz, a partner and former chief of staff to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, is returning to the firm after roughly two years away. Horwitz will take on a new role as chief of staff to CEO David Solomon, who has faced criticisms of his leadership as he struggles to reshape the bank.
Horwitz will replace longtime Goldman Sachs executive John Rogers, who has had the ear of both the CEO and the board since Jon Corzine hired him in 1994.
Rogers, both feared and revered inside Goldman, will stay on at Goldman as executive vice president and secretary to the board of directors, according to people with knowledge of the plans. Rogers, who has worked for US presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, will also stay on as a member of Goldman's powerful management committee.
The transition was first reported by The New York Times, which said that Rogers has no plans to leave the firm "anytime soon." But rumors of his retirement have swirled inside the halls of Goldman for months, according to two people with knowledge of them. The transition will also mark the end of an era for Rogers, who has advised four Goldman CEOs over 30 years.
In recent years, Rogers's power has been chipped away. When Solomon, and his No. 2, John Waldron, hired Fiona Carter from AT&T to be Goldman's first chief marketing officer in 2020, the marketing and content functions were removed from under Rogers' oversight. Carter quickly consolidated marketing functions and built out a large team.
One person long thought to be a logical replacement for Rogers, Dina Powell McCormick, recently left the firm to be vice chairman at BDT & MSD Partners, the boutique merchant bank run by former Goldman bankers Gregg Lemkau and Byron Trott. Another, Jake Siewert, left Goldman for Warburg Pincus in June 2021.
What does Horwitz's return mean for Goldman Sachs and, more important, for Solomon?
According to Horwitz, he was hand-picked by Solomon after being recommended by Rogers, suggesting he has the full support of both the CEO and his former chief-of-staff.
But as insiders point out, he is also viewed as a loyalist to Solomon's predecessor Blankfein, who reportedly "groused" about Solomon with other Goldman partners at this year's partners' meeting in Miami. Partners are the firm's highest-level executives under the C-suite. Solomon has been under pressure to assuage grumblings from some of them over his money-losing foray into consumer banking.
Whatever the transition may bring, it will doubtless be closely watched. Here's everything we know about Solomon's new chief of staff.
He's seen as a Blankfein loyalist
In some ways, Horwitz is an odd choice. He is viewed as a Blankfein loyalist who cares deeply about the culture of a firm that many partners and ex-partners believe is headed in the wrong direction.
In other ways, it makes a lot of sense. Rogers tapped Horwitz to handle the day-to-day tasks of negotiating Goldman's settlement over the 1MDB scandal, suggesting he was trusted to deal with the stickiest of affairs.
Now, Horwitz's role will be one of helping Solomon regain the trust of the partners and retake some of the narrative around the money-losing consumer business and a spate of partner exits.
This was a long-time coming
This is not the first time Horwitz has been suggested as a replacement for Rogers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Several years ago Horwitz, and two other partners in the firm's communications and government relations department, pushed to take on some of Rogers' responsibilities, these people said.
Goldman's president John Waldron was eventually brought into the discussion, but he left the decision to Rogers, who decided against giving up any of his responsibilities. Horwitz left soon after.
The talks started in June
Horwitz declined to comment on those earlier discussions, but he said Rogers initiated the most recent discussion and soon began the process of bringing Horwitz back into the fold.
According to Horwitz, the plan has been in the works since June, when he left the employ of billionaire Ken Griffin at Citadel.
"John and I first talked about the possibility of me coming back in June," Horwitz told Insider, referring to Rogers. "He made a recommendation to David and John, and I spent a lot of time with them over the summer."
When Horwitz informed executives at Citadel about his plans to rejoin Goldman, an executive there told him that his heart has always been in that place, referring to Goldman, Horwitz said.
He most recently worked at Citadel
Horwitz joined Citadel in 2021 as its chief global-affairs officer amid a wider flow of Goldman executives to large, multi-strategy hedge funds.
As Insider has previously reported, many of Citadel's nearly 20 senior executives hail from Goldman, including Pablo Salame, the co-CIO who ran global markets at the investment bank, and CTO Umesh Subramanian.
Of his time at Citadel, Horwitz said: "I had accomplished what I wanted there. I am a creature of a public company, that's where my skill set is best applied and there aren't many companies in the world that are more complex or interesting as Goldman."
He has Washington experience
Like Rogers, Horwitz also has a past working in Washington DC. Before joining Goldman in 2004, he worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission under chairman Arthur Levitt. He also worked for the Clinton White House.
In 2017, Horwitz was elevated from co-COO of Goldman's trading division to deputy chief of staff and secretary to its management committee, a powerful body of senior executives responsible for firmwide strategy, policy, and management decisions. He worked closely with Rogers in that capacity.
"He's had an enormous influence on my career and it's exciting and daunting to take on a set of responsibilities that he has set the standard for," Horwitz said of Rogers.
He made partner at Goldman in 2012 and will be returning to the bank with that title.
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