Goldman's New Boy Wonder

- Dakin Campbell

“Today’s decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.’s leadership position in the world.” With those 102 characters, Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., introduced himself to Twitter on June 1, taking a swipe at President Donald Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

No other leader of a big U.S. bank has an official Twitter account. Most avoid taking stands on political issues, aside from financial regulation, on any platform. And Blankfein, the target of public scorn for his company’s role in the 2008 financial crisis, was opening himself up for more criticism. “I felt there was some inevitability to it,” he says, a half-dozen tweets and 40,000 followers later. “In this world, part of my job is to make us understood, because the consequences of not being understood were made quite vivid to me.”

Blankfein’s embrace of a new technology and his willingness to speak out go hand in hand with a strategic retooling as he begins his 12th year as the bank’s leader. If the first act of his career ended with the crisis, and the second covered its aftermath, the third began a year and a half ago with his recovery from lymphoma and his decision to stick around.