Goldman Sachs’ $80M John Waldron CEO Succession Bet
Goldman Sachs paid John Waldron $80 million to stay, then acted as if his path to CEO was still a mystery. That is not boardroom drama. It is what preparation looks like.
Goldman Sachs paid John Waldron $80 million to stay, then acted as if his path to CEO was still a mystery. That is not boardroom drama. It is what preparation looks like.
Reports last week said Goldman’s board has discussed a plan for Waldron, the bank’s 57-year-old president and chief operating officer, to replace David Solomon as CEO as early as late 2027 or in 2028. Solomon could then remain executive chairman for roughly one to two years. Goldman has pushed back on the idea that there is a fixed timetable, saying there is “no definitive timeline.” Fair enough. A timetable is not the same thing as a succession plan. But anyone paying attention can see the plan. ([investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/goldmans-board-has-discussed-plan-to-name-john-waldron-as-next-ceo-wsj-reports-4921367?utm_source=openai))
The $80 million clue was sitting in plain sight
In January 2025, Goldman gave both Solomon and Waldron retention awards valued at $80 million apiece. These were not annual bonuses and they were not a polite pat on the back. They were 100% stock-based awards designed to keep the CEO and COO together, preserve leadership continuity and support the firm’s longer-term succession planning.
The awards carry a five-year cliff vesting schedule, meaning they do not vest until January 2030, subject to continued service. That is about as subtle as a brick through a window. The board was telling the market: these are the two men we want running the joint while we decide how the handover happens. ([sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312526117433/gs-gs_proxy_2026.pdf?utm_source=openai))
This is the bit most companies get embarrassingly wrong. They call succession planning a confidential process, which is often code for: we have not done it properly and would rather not discuss it. Then a CEO leaves, gets pushed out or falls ill, and directors discover they have built a business dependent on one person’s phone contacts and memory.
Goldman has done the opposite. Waldron became president and COO in October 2018, the same month Solomon became CEO. He joined the board in February 2025. He has spent years running the day-to-day machine, driving operating efficiency, engaging clients and helping lead the firm’s strategic priorities. He is not being pulled out of a hedge fund, an airport lounge or a PowerPoint presentation at McKinsey. He has been in the engine room. ([sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312526117433/gs-20260319.htm?utm_source=openai))
That does not guarantee he will be a great CEO. Nothing does. But it dramatically reduces the odds that Goldman wakes up one morning with a new boss who needs six months to learn where the toilets are.
David Solomon is leaving from strength, not wreckage
There is another lesson here: the best time to hand over power is when you do not have to.
Solomon took over as Goldman CEO in October 2018. His tenure has had its rough patches. The consumer-banking push was expensive and messy, and Goldman eventually pulled back after billions of dollars in pretax losses. That matters because it proves the bloke is not infallible, despite the CEO mythology that infects Wall Street.
But the business now looks materially stronger than it did during that consumer detour. Goldman reported $58.3 billion in 2025 net revenues, up 9% year on year; earnings per share rose 27% to $51.32; and return on equity improved to 15.0%. The share price has more than quadrupled during Solomon’s time at the helm, according to reporting on the prospective transition. ([goldmansachs.com](https://www.goldmansachs.com/investor-relations/financials/current/annual-reports/2025-annual-report?utm_source=openai))
That is exactly when a board should be working through succession. Not when the share price is falling, morale is shot and the chief executive is suddenly “spending more time with family” after a very public disaster.
A strong outgoing CEO has something weak ones do not: the ability to make a successor better without treating them as a threat. Solomon has had eight years to put Waldron beside him, expose him to clients, pressure-test his judgment and make him visible internally. If Waldron gets the job, he will not be inheriting a mystery box. He will be inheriting a firm he has already helped operate.
The real risk is not Waldron. It is the people who do not get the job.
Here is the overlooked part of any high-level succession: naming the winner is easy. Keeping the runners-up useful is where adults earn their money.
Goldman has a deep bench. CFO Denis Coleman, asset and wealth management head Marc Nachmann, and global banking and markets leaders Ashok Varadhan and Dan Dees are all serious operators. A clean succession for Waldron could create a messy talent problem if ambitious executives conclude their ceiling is now visible.
That is not a Goldman-only issue. Every founder and CEO who promotes one lieutenant has to deal with the emotional and commercial aftermath for the others. Pretending it will all be fine is cowardly management.
If I were in Solomon’s shoes, I would not wait until a CEO announcement to start those conversations. I would give the next layer of leaders bigger businesses, explicit mandates, retention economics and, most importantly, an honest answer about their future. Good people can handle bad news. What they cannot handle is being strung along while the board congratulates itself for having a pipeline.
The $80 million retention grant tells us Goldman understands this at the very top. The tougher question is whether the same clarity extends through the next two layers of management. It needs to.
An executive chairman can help — or make the new CEO a caretaker
The proposed structure has one obvious trap: Solomon staying on as executive chairman after stepping down as CEO.
This can work brilliantly. A former CEO can protect key client relationships, steady investors, coach the successor and provide institutional memory through a sensitive transition. In a complex firm like Goldman, that experience has real value.
It can also become a nightmare.
If Waldron becomes CEO but Solomon remains the person clients call, analysts defer to and senior executives quietly seek permission from, then Waldron is not CEO. He is a highly paid chief operating officer with a shinier business card.
The lines need to be brutally clear before the announcement, not six months after it. Who owns strategy? Who hires and fires the top team? Who speaks for the firm to regulators, investors and major clients? Who has the final say when the chairman and CEO disagree?
If those answers are fuzzy, the handover will be fuzzy. And fuzzy authority is poison in a business where decisions need to be made quickly and people are talented enough to exploit any ambiguity.
This is why I would put a hard expiry date on an executive-chair arrangement. Eighteen months is plenty. Two years is the outer limit. Longer than that and you are usually preserving the former CEO’s comfort rather than building the next CEO’s authority.
The contrarian view: this is not conservative leadership
Some people will call Goldman’s approach cautious. I think it is aggressive.
The conservative move is waiting. It feels safe because nobody has to declare a winner, disappoint a contender or risk looking wrong. But waiting is expensive. It hands leverage to recruiters, competitors and internal politics. It turns every executive dinner into a rumour mill. It encourages talented people to take calls because they cannot see their own future.
Goldman made a call years ago: Waldron was worth retaining, developing and placing visibly beside Solomon. The board did not guarantee him the CEO role — and it should not. Circumstances change. Performance matters. But it created the conditions for a rational choice rather than a panicked one.
That is not old-school banking. It is capital allocation applied to leadership.
A company will happily spend months diligencing a $500 million acquisition, then choose its next chief executive through a handful of dinners and a consultant’s slide deck. Madness. Your CEO decision has a far bigger impact on value than most acquisitions ever will.
What this means for you
If you run a business, manage a team or want to become harder to replace, steal the useful bits of Goldman’s playbook tomorrow.
First, name the role below you that would hurt most if it became vacant. Not the role with the fanciest title — the one where decisions would slow down, revenue would wobble or everyone would ring you in a panic.
Second, identify two possible successors. Two, not one. A single successor is not succession planning; it is a hostage situation.
Third, give those people real operating exposure. Let them own a client relationship, a budget, a product launch, a difficult hire or a bloody-minded turnaround. You do not discover leadership potential in a quarterly review. You discover it when something breaks and they have to fix it.
Fourth, make the incentives long-term. You do not need Goldman’s $80 million. But if your best operator can earn the same whether they build a durable business or merely hit this quarter’s target, do not act surprised when they optimise for themselves.
Finally, tell people where they stand. You do not need to promise anyone the top job. In fact, you should not. But you owe your best people clarity about what they must prove, what opportunities exist and what you are prepared to back.
Goldman’s likely handover is not interesting because David Solomon may eventually leave. Every CEO leaves. It is interesting because the bank did the unglamorous work years before the headlines arrived.
That is the whole game in leadership: make the difficult decision early enough that, when everybody else notices it, it no longer looks difficult.