Trio of Irish bankers make partner at Goldman Sachs

A trio of Irish bankers will be updating their LinkedIn profiles, having just been granted access to the prestigious – and lucrative – partnership group at global investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Orla Dunne, global head of foundational infrastructure in London; John Brennan, a managing director in the financial institutions group in London; and Richard Chambers, global head of repo trading and global co-head of the short macro trading joint venture in New York, have all made the cut in this year's partnership round.

It means they will join the elite 1 per cent of the firm who form part of the leadership group of the bank, as the partnership now totals fewer than 440 in a company that employs about 38,000.

Goldman partners receive a pay rise to a basic salary of $950,000 (€803,000) and exclusive investment opportunities, which have just been expanded to include “carried interest” in Goldman’s private investment funds. Carried interest, a share of the funds’ future profits, is taxed at a capital-gains rate that is typically much lower than recipients’ income tax rate.

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Technology

Ms Dunne joined the firm in 2000 as a vice-president in the technology division, and has held a variety of roles during her tenure, including global co-head of engineering deployment, runtime and architecture, head of technology infrastructure and client platforms in EMEA, and global head of market data. Previously, she worked at UBS and Morgan Stanley in both software engineering and infrastructure roles.

A graduate of both UCD and the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, Mr Brennan joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an associate and was named managing director in 2011. In his current role he executes mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and restructuring transactions for banks, insurers and asset management companies across Europe.

A native of Mayo, Mr Chambers holds a BSc in Financial Mathematics and Economics from NUI Galway, and joined the bank as an interest rate trader in August 2015. Prior to that he worked as a portfolio manager with hedge fund Blue Crest, and was a co-founder of Bua Book, a sports trading exchange.

Diverse

It’s the most diverse group of partners the bank has ever announced, with 27 per cent of partners women, 7 per cent black, 5 per cent Hispanic/Latin and 17 per cent Asian.

It is smaller than previous years, however. Goldman named 60 new partners on Thursday, fewer than the 69 promoted in 2018 and well below the about 100 typically named in biennial rounds in the era of Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chief executive from 2006 until late 2018.

The class of 2020 have a typical tenure with the bank of about 14 years, while more than half started with the bank as graduates.

David Solomon, the bank's chief executive, has resolved to shrink the number of partners and increase the financial perks they enjoy, as well as to broaden the make-up of the partnership to reflect Goldman's evolving business, which is branching into areas including digital banking and cash management. The latest promotions also continued a trend of naming more partners from areas such as operations and risk.

– Additional reporting The Financial Times Limited 2020