Lloyd Blankfein

Investment banker and former chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein talks about his rise from a precarious childhood in Brooklyn and shares the lessons he learned leading teams through moments of crisis such as the global financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Blankfein says people often view him as ‘streety’, and they are not talking about Wall Street. He grew up in the public housing projects of Brooklyn and says his outsider status never left him despite a path that took him to Harvard. He talks about the world of finance, including the good and the bad times, about managing risk and leading teams, and about human nature.

“Lloyd Blankfein is scary smart about people, markets, and life generally.” Warren Buffett

Blankfein studied law at Harvard before briefly entering law practice. He led Goldman Sach’s currency and commodities divisions before serving as president and chief operating officer. He became chief executive just before the financial crisis hit the banking industry. He was twice named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine and won the Financial Times Person of the Year award in 2009.