Building a network of different people whom you can go to for advice and feedback means that when you make big career decisions, you have a lot of people whose input you value. His was a niche business not well understood by bankers until she came along. Stephanie Cohen, cohead of Goldman's consumer and wealth group, is the only woman heading one of the bank's primary business divisions. Stephanie Cohens first 15 years at Goldman Sachs, her career ladder didnt look much different than that of a typical investment banker. She has also led the firm's Launch with GS, a $500 million commitment to invest in companies and investment managers with diverse leadership. Cohen will ostensibly replace longtime Goldman partner Timothy ONeill, who is currently head of Consumer & Investment Management, a division that will be obsolete in 2021 thanks to the reorganization. Ms. Cohen serves on the National Board of Directors of College Spring and as a member of the Board of Quill.org. I did what I advise lots of people to do, which is get all the information you can possibly get, [and] write out the pros and cons, she says. Stephanie Cohen is the chief strategy officer for Goldman Sachs and a member of their management committee. You should spendmoney on things that truly make you happy. The program is self-sustaining in that schools pay for it with money set aside for a literacy specialist. Platform Solutions, home to Goldmans credit card, transaction banking and fintech businesses, was born of a desire to wean Goldman off the volatile trading and investment banking revenues it is best known for. Cohen and Mass talk several times daily, one person who knows them both said. And then. She is in the eye of the storm now, as Goldman tries to convince Wall Street it can get its mojo back. Net revenues for the consumer business in the second quarter were $608 million, 67% higher than the second quarter of 2021, primarily reflecting significantly higher balances on both credit card balances and higher deposit balances. Detractors question the depth of her record to date, and acknowledge that this will be her biggest test yet. Adam said you advise lots of CEOs on strategy you write about strategy. She was a force at the negotiation table, he said. 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Cohen was a competitive figure skater who dreamed of making it to the Olympics. By Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer, Goldman Sachs June 19, 2018. She'll have competition from other Goldman elites like John Waldron, the firm's president, widely considered to be first in line when Solomon ends his tenure. Nearly two years after its last loan, the Paycheck Protection Program is still making headlines for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately. Its great for a woman to be achieving this level of success at Goldman and shes certainly capable of going further," Nugent said. Located only 30 miles from Washington, DC on 500 acres of Virginia's stunning wine country, this resort combines vineyard charm with country-club luxury. Ashburn, VA. Capacity: 200. ", Cohen led "Launch with GS," the bank's $1 billion commitment to increase access to capital for women, Black, Latino and other diverse entrepreneurs and investors. Become a business insider with the latest news. Just this spring Cohen was tapped for an exciting new assignment creating and heading a new group, Global Financial Sponsor M&A. That advice has been crucial to Cohens success throughout her career. Our people find Dallas a really, really great place to live and raise a family.. As Cohen's career led her to work with private-equity clients, it also placed her in the orbit of Alison Mass, a Goldman partner who has long led Goldman's financial sponsors practice. Since the start of this year, Cohen has held the weighty title of chief strategy officer leading a team that helps decide where the bank should pursue new lines of business or acquisitions of its own. Her first big career pivot was nine years in (see milestone dates, below), when a job came up in the division that scrutinises bankers facing potential legal and ethical issues with their deals. She is also a Global Executive sponsor of the Women's Network. Ms. Cohen serves on the National Board of Directors of CollegeSpring and as a member of the Board of Quill.org. At the end of the day, you have to have good judgment, and be able to adapt to different situations, she says. Were hopeful that well create this self-enforcing ecosystem where people will say if they want to work in financial services and do cool things in fintech, this is one of the great places to go to do that, Cohen said. Goldman also announced Tuesday that Harit Talwar will step aside from his day-to-day management of Marcus after five years, making way for Goldman partner Omer Ismail to take charge of the banks biggest consumer product. no, no, no, Cohen says. She graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and received an M.B.A. from Northwestern. He has since left Goldman to run his own fund. It had revenue of $1.5 billion in 2021. If Cohen can successfully employ technology to supercharge Goldman's future, she'll be a contender for the top job, insiders say. In 2008, she managed Conflicts and Business Selection for IBD in the Americas. 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SEG is the ideal venue for meetings, sales events, bachelor parties, fundraisers, cocktail mixers, birthday parties and more. By putting Cohen in this new role, he also is boosting her profile in Goldmans line of succession. Cohen is a Goldman Sachs lifer who started at the bank as an analyst back in 1999, spending time in New York and San Francisco. Cohens route into banking was Goldmans mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team in New York, where she started as an analyst in 1999. Cohen began to pepper Martin with questions. Some of that could be due to the fact that there are fewer women in venture capital and fewer women founders. That streamlining created the consumer banking group, which contains Goldmans fledgling Marcus savings account business and AppleCard businesses. Jun 22 Stephanie Cohen: Chief Strategy Officer at Goldman Sachs. Dallas is now Goldmans second-biggest U.S. office outside of New York, surpassing Salt Lake City. Her father is a partner in the accounting branch of Deloitte in Manhattan. The appointment made her the lone woman running one of Goldman's business divisions and only the second to ever do so and entered her into the discussion as a CEO candidate. We get it: you like to have control of your own internet experience. Dallas led all metropolitan areas in 2021 in net tech job growth, adding 5,321 positions, according to a new report by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the information technology industry. Our vision for this is that in the same way that we have developed a really good talent base in places like London and Hong Kong and New York, where people come to Goldman Sachs in order to work in finance and investment banking, I think there will be people who come to Dallas who want to work in fintech and want to do that at Goldman Sachs, said Cohen, who moved to Dallas from New York in August to lead the companys growth. When Adena Friedman, the CEO of Nasdaq, hosted a dozen executives for dinner at her home in June 2018, it marked the first encounter for one of Wall Street's most senior women and another up-and-comer. And she's what I call a three-dimensional thinker," Friedman told Insider. Solomon, 58, took the helm at Goldman in October 2018. Not the backstabbing type, she's smart enough to understand she has to pay attention to that side of her career if she wants to succeed, said a friend and former colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve their relationship. For my entire career, Ive embraced challenges and focused on the impact of a business rather than an arbitrary notion of its size, the head of Goldmans Platform Solutions business says, referring to Solomons announcement that the bank was exploring strategic alternatives for some of her division. Stephanie Cohen has been at Goldman Sachs for more than 23 years. After her stint as chief strategy officer, she became co-head of Goldmans consumer and wealth business, a fast-growing area that was central to plans to diversify Goldmans streams of revenue. Cohen, 41, joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as an analyst and worked her way up in the investment banking division to managing director in 2008 and partner six years later. personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to Cohen, who is in charge of over $1 trillion in client assets, is the youngest member of the management committee, Goldmans highest echelon. But advertising revenue helps support our journalism. Cohen said Goldman has been focused on fortifying its relationships with universities to help attract engineering talent to D-FW. She recalls how she conformed to the dress code of her male peers by chance, because she preferred muted colours anyway. The sector is a favorite of the private-equity firms that throw lots of business to Wall Street banks like Goldman, and Cohen began to work with them more. For example, theres a bunch of statistics showing that if you give people the option toinvest in a 401(k) plan, many people wont do it. Insurance is also likely coming, people with knowledge of the strategy said. ), Read more: Goldman Sachs has named 6 people to lead product development in its consumer and wealth management group a sign of big innovations to come from the growing division. Cohen, who oversees 11,000 employees in her division, said that the business is divided along three lines: ultra-high- wealth households; companies and their employees; and consumers. Cohen credits Goldmans early female partners, including Alison Mass and Gwen Libstag, as blazing the trail for women like her, and says she has felt very responsible for helping other women to advance. By years end, 40% of its employees were working in those locations, the company said. That meant Cohen had to work closely with the then-CEO of the Fiat-Chrysler group, Sergio Marchionne, sometimes camping out for talks in Detroit or paying visits to the U.S. Treasury Department. Its the ultimate man-cave. Stephanie Cohen. It doesnt have to be one thing or the other; its about making spending decisions consciously rather than scrolling on your phone and thinking about what youshould spend on., What Ive noticed at Goldman Sachs isthat men tend to talk about investment opportunities amongst each other. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Stephanie Cohen said firms like Walmart Inc. that are planning to offer financial services represent an opportunity for the Wall Street giant which can work with some . Cohen joined Goldman in the late 1990s as an analyst after college. What do you think about how strategy ought to be done to be most effective in an organization?' She began to think of making partner at Goldman as the career equivalent of her one-time dream of skating at the Olympics. You know, the egos can run very hot and whatnot, and she doesn't. The messaging organization is providing a sandbox for developers to enable cross-border transactions for central bank digital currencies, an elusive goal as most central banks focus on domestic use. Running the division alongside her new co-head Tucker York also transforms Cohen immediately into one of the most powerful women on Wall Street and the latest female contender to lead a major bank. 2 exec, president and operating chief John Waldron, is only 50 and is viewed as his de facto successor. . Stephanie Cohen heads strategy, innovation, and mergers-and-acquisitions for Goldman Sachs. Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that Cohen became a managing partner at Goldman Sachs in 2008. Instead, I found it really helpful to look at a, people and look for things that I like or relate to. And she does not have the most exciting social life, prioritising athletic weekends with her kids over evenings at fancy restaurants. Here are her five best pieces of advice on work and personal finance for professional women. Assisted by David Haber, a member of her team and a former startup founder with deep relationships in the technology industry, she embarked on a "listening tour," meeting more than 50 of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in conversations she began by asking questions and soliciting advice about what Goldman could do better. We have the ability to have access to our clients in Texas but also more broadly across the United States and internationally. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. All Rights Reserved. She dug into the bones of the deal and was very compelling.". In addition, Cohen acts as a mentor to junior women as they think about their careers, and she stays involved in recruiting and retaining a core group of female analysts. San Francisco-based First Republic was undone by low-rate mortgages it made to its wealthy customers as well as by the fallout from last month's banking crisis. Cohen says she is proud that her teams success in driving financial sponsor M&A for the Industrials Group was recognized such that she was given the opportunity to build this broader business across the company. At that time, the bank was struggling with falling and volatile revenues from its traditional businesses. The organization does great work very efficiently. We discuss lessons learned from her career in M&A and the many initiatives she now leads at the firm. Last weekend, Cohen joined a panel at this years Girlboss Rally in New York, a two-day event to foster networking and learning among women entrepreneurs,to talk about career, money and life. (Insiders said that Cohen's cohead, the 35-year Goldman veteran York, will be more focused on the wealth-management side of the business. You can use that as something that bothers you, or you can use that as a point of differentiation. Complimentary access to top ideas and insights curated by our editors. Prior to her current role, Stephanie drove strategy, M&A, strategic investing, and partnerships as the firm's chief strategy officer. Stephanie is now the Global Co-Head of the Consumer and Wealth Management Division at Goldman Sachs. She joined Goldman after graduation, in 1999, assuming she'd spend two years there and head off to law school. Goldman Sachs. In November 2017, then-CEO Lloyd Blankfein tapped Cohen to replace Stephen Scherr as chief strategy officer, elevating her into a role with an office on the 41st floor, where Goldman's executive office is located. She started as an analyst in 1999 and has held a series of leadership positions in mergers and acquisitions. It was very exploratory in that way," he said. Below are steps you can take in order to whitelist Observer.com on your browser: Click the AdBlock button on your browser and select Don't run on pages on this domain. Anyone can read what you share. That was another instance where a bunch of people told me. She is one of seven women named on the committee and is 10 years younger than the average man on the team. Rabbi Jodie L. Siff officiated at Studio Square, an events space. Marcus. All rights reserved. . If Argenti is the engineer and Moorthy the product manager, Cohen is the institutional player who brings both banking expertise and the knowledge of how to get things done within the politics of Goldman, one former employee said. It already lends to Amazon and Walmart merchants. Prior to that, Ms. Cohen was a Vice President in the Industrials and Merger Leadership Groups in San Francisco. She is a key architect of the bank's ambitious consumer strategy, which involves partnerships with high-profile consumer brands. Changing those opinions will be a huge mark of success for Cohen, who fancies herself something of a change agent, and York, a 35-year Goldman lifer less inclined to rock the boat. A Goldman Sachs lifer who rose through the ranks of mergers and acquisitions after starting as an analyst fresh out of college, Stephanie Cohen, 42, became chief strategy officer in January 2018. . Before that, she was the firm's Chief Strategy Officer, where she drove strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), strategic investing and partnerships for the firm. Cohen, 41, joined Goldman Sachs in. Money is power, Go with the gut or start a spreadsheet? Patrick O'Shaughnessy, who interviewed Cohen for his podcast, "Invest Like the Best," said her method of learning as much as she could, even if it meant acknowledging a degree of vulnerability, is a rare quality. (One former CFO kept a toaster in his office to warn against retail-banking gimmicks.). Six weeks after meeting Friedman, Cohen became the youngest person to join Goldman's management committee. The idea is now central to how the firm is looking to reinvent itself. When she and her husband planned to have children, he asked: Which one of us is going to quit? Cohens answer was: Why is one of us going to quit?. Terms & Conditions. he has worked onhistoric large corporate deals, including Chryslers repayment of a U.S. government loan, which marked the automakers comeback after the 2008 Financial Crisis, Last weekend, Cohen joined a panel at this years. In case you cant find any email from our side, please check the spam folder. Cohen decided to take the job, and returned to M&A a year later, as a managing director. We discussed her career as a long time investment banker to now running a global division . ), Read more: A new Goldman Sachs tech exec hired from Amazon is taking a page from the Jeff Bezos playbook by urging engineers to ditch PowerPoint and write memos. Stephanie Cohen, co-head of consumer banking and wealth management at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., discusses increasing access to capital for women and minority entrepreneurs on "Bloomberg Markets . In strategy, she says, we made it clear that diversity was a strategic imperative that should be talked about in the same room as revenue and market share and growth. . In August, The Dallas Morning News reported that Goldman is eyeing a new skyscraper project on the edge of downtown Dallas as a location for up to 6,000 workers. But it also presents new risks to manage. She believes that it doesnt have to overwhelm your personal life, but it makes the networking easier and more fun when you can build and create personal connections at the same time. The best way to do this is to have a long-term view. . Cohen consulted the advisers that she calls her own board of directors, asking them whether she should leave a client-facing job. She said the senior leadership team understands that diversity and inclusion is a "business imperative'' and that "this needs to be discussed in the same meetings where we talk about revenue or investment strategies. Goldman now finds itself carving a path with a direct-to-consumer digital bank and a broad effort to give retailers, automakers, and other nonbanks the tools to offer their own banking products. She joined Goldman Sachs as an Analyst in 1999, was named Managing Director in 2008 and Partner in 2014. Sign up for notifications from Insider! By living and breathing the deal, she came away highly impressed with how much the employees cared about the company, and the resulting turnaround and pride in the positive strides they made in relation to the quality of their cars. Goldman's $2.2 billion acquisition of GreenSky allows the bank to beef up its customer base and gives it access to the fintech's network of more than 10,000 merchants. But she took the job anyway, at least in part because she was allowed a blank sheet to define the role.