Goldman CEO David Solomon Has Board’s Support Despite Bad Press

David Solomon’s hot seat appears to be cooling off.

After months of swirling speculation that Solomon's job was on the line, the Goldman Sachs CEO got a boost late Monday from a note by veteran Wells Fargo Securities bank analyst Mike Mayo, who wrote that Solomon has the support of Goldman’s board.

According to Mayo, who met with Goldman lead director Adebayo Ogunlesi, the board has no plans to remove Solomon and he will stay on “for at least the medium term.”

The 61-year-old Solomon spent the summer battling a barrage of bad press detailing his alleged bullying management style, an exodus of top talent and growing concern among senior Goldman execs that the boss had made too many missteps. Overhauling the firm’s structure twice in just four years to accommodate the move into — and then out of — consumer banking was one of them.

Goldman’s spokespeople consistently denied those reports.

In Mayo’s note, he writes that Ogunlesi and his fellow board members see “a disconnect between media reports and the board's conclusions from their oversight.”

The 69-year-old Ogunlesi, who joined Goldman’s board in 2012 before taking the lead director role in 2014, also made it clear to Mayo that the firm’s strategy is back on track and that Goldman’s share price has outpaced peers despite its stumbles under Solomon. He also offered that the board deserves some blame for not pressing Solomon harder and sooner to abandon the push into consumer banking.

While Ogunlesi told Mayo that the rate of partner turnover has not been higher under Solomon than his predecessors, he did concede that the board was disappointed that it “lost some that it did not want to lose.”

Losses like co-head of Global Asset Management Eric Lane, co-head of Investment Banking Gregg Lemkau, communications czar Jake Siewert, veteran insider Dina Powell McCormick, and most recently Julian Salisbury, chief investment officer of the asset and wealth management division, have been painful. But the return of one prodigal executive might be crucial to Solomon's turnaround crusade.

The Messenger reported in June that the firm’s longtime chief of staff and board secretary John Rogers had lost faith in Solomon, creating a key fissure at the top of Goldman’s leadership structure. Goldman denied that reporting, with Global Head of Communications Tony Fratto calling it “categorically false.”

Still, Rogers stepped back from his chief-of-staff role less than two months later. He was replaced by his former deputy, Russell Horowitz, who left in 2020 to become head of global affairs at mega-hedge fund Citadel. And while Rogers remains in the board secretary role, Goldman insiders say that the impact of Horowitz, who took over on Sept. 5, is already being felt.

“David, Russell, and the board are finally pushing back,” one former Goldman partner told The Messenger. “Ogunlesi should have been out there backing David a while ago, but at least he’s doing it now.”

Mayo also writes that investors seem less interested in Solomon’s personal life than Goldman’s stock price and rhetorically asks if the CEO is still indulging in his much-publicized DJ hobby.

While Goldman has been clear that Solomon has not spun records on stage in almost a year, insiders have confirmed to The Messenger that the retirement of his DJ D-Sol persona is likely permanent since Solomon has concluded that what was once a quirky hobby had become something of a distraction.

After chatting with Ongulesi, Mayo believes that Solomon might have ample time to make everyone forget about his DJ days altogether.

“Our conclusion,” Mayo writes “is that the CEO is not going anywhere anytime soon.”