Why Does Goldman Sachs President and COO John Waldron View Himself as COO First and President Second?

Goldman Sachs Exchanges

Goldman Sachs

Business

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Waldron is a busy man. He’s almost a year into his role as Goldman Sachs COO and President, and he’s also a father of six. In this episode, Waldron demystifies his day-to-day and explains why he’s even more focused on executing on the title “COO” than “president.” “My role right now really is to first learn the firm and understand the inner workings of the firm, and so that’s a really operationally intensive job, thus the chief operating officer component,” says Waldron. “The president job comes into play more on an external basis where you’re out with clients, with governments, with regulators and other external constituencies where that title has real resonance.” Waldron also discusses how younger employees can identify and invest in mentors, as well as the importance of recharging out of the office. For Waldron, that means getting home for dinner with his family if he has to head out to a client event later in the evening. “I’ll have a little bit of peanut butter and jelly and then I’ll have a steak tartare later on,” he tells podcast host Jake Siewert.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Exchanges at Goldman Sachs, where we discuss developments currently shaping markets, industries
0:13.4	in the global economy. I'm Jake Seward, Global Head of Corporate Communications here at the firm.
0:18.1	Our guest today is John Waldron, Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer.
0:22.7	John joined Goldman back in 2000 and prior to his current role,
0:26.1	he was co-head of our Investment Banking Division.
0:28.6	On this episode, we'll be diving into what it's really like
0:31.1	to be President and CEO of Goldman Sachs, some of the key strategic
0:34.4	initiatives John's focused on, some advice to young people and much, much more.
0:38.5	John, welcome to the program.
0:40.3	Thank you, thank you for having me.
0:41.5	So talk a little bit about your background.
0:43.2	Fascinating career.
0:44.3	What was the path to this job?
0:46.8	So I started my career at Bear Stearns,
0:48.8	which in the early 90s was a very entrepreneurial firm
0:51.8	and I got a lot of experience at a young age probably
0:54.3	well before I deserved it in a firm like that that was not as deep or as well established
0:58.8	the firm like Goldman Sachs and I ran through a bunch of different jobs in investment banking,
1:02.6	but a lot of them were in the capital markets part of the business,
1:05.4	mostly in the high-yield business and the loan business.
1:07.2	So I had a background in leverage credit.
1:09.4	Bear was deep there.
	...

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