Yahoo Finance Retirement of Goldman commodities boss caps a year of management changes for Wall Street giant
Another well-known Goldman Sachs executive is leaving his post, capping a year of high-profile management changes as the Wall Street giant navigates a series of challenges.
The latest movement affects Goldman’s commodities trading business. The head of that desk, Ed Emerson, will retire in March after more than 24 years, according to a memo viewed by Yahoo Finance.
He will be succeeded by Xiao Qin and Nitin Jindal as co-heads of global commodities, according to the memo. The 47-year-old Emerson will remain as an advisory director to the business.
The reshuffling follows the departure of several key players across the Goldman franchise earlier this year, some of whom had been with the firm for decades.
They included Julian Salisbury, who was chief investment officer of asset and wealth management; Dina Powell McCormick, who was head of the bank's sovereign business; and Jeff Currie, the former global head of commodities research who had been with the firm for 27 years.
Another high-profile exit is 28-year Goldman veteran Chris Kojima, who serves as co-head of Goldman's client solutions group with asset and wealth management. He will join a private equity firm in early 2024.
The reorganization across the firm comes amid scrutiny of CEO David Solomon, who is under pressure to improve Goldman's results after reporting the firm's lowest quarterly profits in three years.
He is trying to pull off a tricky retreat from consumer banking while refocusing the firm on its core strengths of investment banking, trading, and asset management.
"2023 has been an interesting year," Solomon said at the opening of the firm’s financial services conference last week in New York City.
Goldman, however, is handing new responsibilities to some longtime insiders amid all of this reshuffling.
Earlier this fall, Goldman said one member of its top management committee, Ericka Leslie, would step down as chief administrative officer to become chief operating officer of Goldman’s global banking and markets division.
That division is the largest at Goldman, housing investment banking as well as trading operations.
The executive who previously held that role, Will Bousquette, became the next chief operating officer of the bank’s asset and wealth management division. Bousquette is succeeding 27-year Goldman veteran Laurence Stein, who will retire at the end of the year.
Even in commodities, other executives are getting promotions. Qin and Jindal already held high-ranking positions within the commodities businesses before getting the nod to replace Emerson in 2024.
pThe unit is one of the most storied at Goldman, having produced some of the firm’s top leaders, including former CEO Lloyd Blankfein and former president Gary Cohn.
One of its longtime stars is Emerson, who started at Goldman in 1999 and became partner in 2012, weathering the booms and busts of Goldman’s commodities desk for close to three decades.
He was with the division through its record low point in 2017, when revenue fell 75% from the previous year.
Over 2020, when oil prices surged, the commodities desk earned its highest revenue in a decade. The group topped that the next year, bringing in more than $2.2 billion.
For Emerson, the team’s success meant a bonus in the range of tens of millions, Bloomberg previously reported, making him one of the highest-paid partners.
Between now and March, Emerson will also step back from various firm committees and will work to get others on those committees, a person familiar with the arrangement told Yahoo Finance.
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto and other areas in finance.
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