Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chief global lobbyist, Michael Paese, is moving on after 16 years and will be replaced by a lifelong Republican at the helm of a team pushing the Wall Street bank’s policy goals on the Trump administration.
Known as a straight talker in Washington, Paese will become a senior adviser at the firm and support Goldman’s philanthropy as a member of its foundation’s board, according to a memo Thursday that was seen by Bloomberg News.
Paese, a 58-year-old former Democratic lawyer, will be succeeded by Michael Thompson, who worked for two Republican senators and a congressman from the party earlier in his career.
The change comes at a time when banks are pushing for lighter regulation from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has pledged to ease their capital requirements but also announced tariffs that have roiled markets. Goldman’s trading desks have posted record windfalls thanks to the same volatility that’s limited dealmaking for investment bankers.
Thompson, whose Washington career also includes four years at Fannie Mae — the giant mortgage association again slated for possible privatization — joined Goldman in 2010 and was named a managing director the following year.
The bank, also known as “Government Sachs” for its history of executives later taking government roles, is also promoting Kyle Russ to run its prudential policy and strategy, and Ryan Jachym to lead markets policy.
Before Goldman, Paese worked as a lawyer on the House Financial Services Committee, where he witnessed the collapse of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. and helped shape landmark corporate governance legislation known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
He later worked there under Congressman Barney Frank during the financial crisis, but left shortly before passage of the Dodd-Frank Act.
“He understood the big picture that lawyers don’t always have,” said Kenneth Bentsen, a congressman at that time who later followed Paese in a leadership role at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a financial industry advocacy group that includes Goldman as a member.
Paese is known to hold off-site meetings at his house on the Delaware coast and enjoy vacations in Spain. While at work in Washington, he would make sure everyone at Goldman’s headquarters knew when there was an issue that needed to be addressed, often with a flurry of calls to colleagues back in New York, according to Jake Siewert, who ran communications at Goldman for nearly a decade.
“He worries about a lot of things and his instincts are excellent,” said Siewert, describing moments Paese would get animated. “He’s intense, he’s all torqued up.”
His directness also contrasts with the sycophantic tone that often pervades the U.S. capital. In one recent case, Siewert provoked Paese’s ire after overestimating the leniency of Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michael Barr.
“He’s never shy about letting you know when you got something a little off,” said Siewert, who added Paese joked repeatedly that he’d never speak to him again.
With his rise, Paese also became one of the most senior openly gay partners at Goldman Sachs. Along with other top brass including Marty Chavez and Susie Scher, he helped amplify then-Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein’s support for gay marriage before much of corporate America.
After he made a short commercial for the Human Rights Campaign in 2012, Blankfein became corporate America’s go-to spokesperson on gay rights, calling it a “business issue.”
Credit: Bloomberg
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