Lloyd Blankfein

Early life

Lloyd Blankfein was born in The Bronx, 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. His father, Seymour Blankfein, was a clerk with the U.S. Postal Service branch in the Manhattan borough of New York City and his mother was a receptionist. As a boy, he worked as a concession vendor at Yankee Stadium. 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 and earned his A.B. in 1975. In 1978, Blankfein received a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.

Career

Before working at Goldman Sachs, Blankfein worked for Proskauer Rose and then Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine. In 1982, he joined the commodities trading firm J. Aron & Co., which was later acquired by Goldman, 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. 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.

Blankfein 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. He received US$23 million in salary and bonuses in 2015, which was slightly down from the US$24 million he earned in 2014 from Goldman Sachs.

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."

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). 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. The company was sued on April 16, 2010, by the SEC for the fraudulent selling of a synthetic CDO tied to subprime mortgages. 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".

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. In August of the same year, Goldman confirmed that Blankfein had hired high-profile defense lawyer Reid Weingarten, who had previously represented executives including former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and former Enron accounting officer Richard Causey. 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." 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.

Blankfein earned $22.3 million in 2016.

Politics

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". Blankfein contributes to mostly Democratic party candidates and donated $4,600 to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2007. He was an early supporter of gay marriage and has been a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign. In May 2012, Blankfein stated that his stance led Goldman Sachs to lose some clients. Blankfein has visited the White House 14 times as of January 2013. In 2015, he contributed to the Senate re-election campaigns for the Republicans Rob Portman and Roy Blunt. After 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in January 2016 named Blankfein as an example of corporate greed, Blankfein responded that Sanders' campaign had "the potential to be a dangerous moment."

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". In November 2009, he declared in an interview, as a banker: "I'm doing God's work." 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.

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." 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.

On June 1, 2017, Blankfein posted his first ever tweet, despite joining the social media service in 2011. He condemned President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accord, saying "Today's decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.'s leadership position in the world. #ParisAgreement".

Philanthropy

Blankfein formerly served on the board of trustees of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization, whose goal is to alleviate poverty in New York. He serves on the board of directors of the Partnership for New York City, and on the board of overseers of the Weill Cornell Medical College. In the past, Blankfein has served as the Gala Chairman of the Rockefeller Family's Asia Society in New York.

Reception

In 2009, the Financial Times awarded Blankfein its "2009 Person of the Year."

Personal life

Blankfein is married to Laura Jacobs, an attorney and the daughter of Norman S. Jacobs, the editor-in-chief of the Foreign Policy Association publications. The couple have two sons, Alexander and Jonathan, and a daughter, Rachel. On September 22, 2015, Goldman Sachs released a statement saying Blankfein had been diagnosed with a highly treatable form of lymphoma. He received a treatment of chemotherapy. By October 2016, he explained he was cured.

Blankfein and his wife reside primarily in Manhattan's 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.