By Saeed Azhar
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs has named Chief Administrative Officer Ericka Leslie to head global banking and markets operations, its largest division, a memo seen by Reuters showed.
The move, for now, reduces the size of the bank’s nine-member executive officer group to eight.
Leslie’s previous duties will be divided among other executives, people familiar with the matter said.
Leslie, who served as the firm’s administrative chief since early 2022, is replacing Will Bousquette, who has been appointed chief operating officer of the asset and wealth management division, according to another memo. The memos did not indicate when the changes would go into effect.
Goldman Sachs has made a raft of changes since it divided its business into three units last year and scaled back ambitions for its consumer business, which lost $3 billion in the last three years.
Bousquette succeeds Laurence Stein, a 27-year Goldman veteran who plans to retire at the end of the year, the memos said.
Leslie, who is also co-chair of the partnership committee, joined Goldman as an associate in 1996 and became a partner in 2012. The executive has held various leadership roles, including head of technology for currencies and commodities, and operations for the securities division, according to the Goldman memos.
Stein, who held senior roles across major units, was credited by the bank with helping its planning and organization, the memos said.
Stein was also instrumental in developing Goldman’s hubs in Salt Lake City, Dallas, and overseas in India, and led the bank’s pandemic response efforts, Goldman CEO David Solomon wrote in one memo.
Bousquette joined the firm in 1998 and became a partner in 2014.
The Wall Street giant has seen a number of high-profile departures in recent months, including of Julian Salisbury, chief investment officer of asset and wealth management, who is joining investment firm Sixth Street.
The partner exits were “absolutely typical” and allow the bank to make room for new leaders, Solomon told CNBC in an interview last week. More than 400 people comprise its elite partner ranks.
“If the partnership’s a certain size and we want to make a certain number of partners, we have to create that amount of movement over the course of every two-year period,” he said.
Goldman is planning another round of job cuts for employees who are deemed underperformers, which could come this month or in October, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. The bank laid off about 3,200 people earlier this year in its biggest headcount reduction since the 2008 financial crisis.
(Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Lananh Nguyen, Edmund Klamann and Tomasz Janowski)
