David Solomon

David Solomon is the Goldman CEO most people mean when the name is said without a middle initial: a banker from the deal side, not the trading floor, who reached the corner office in 2018.

The job is part balance sheet, part culture. He has kept the franchise while letting a little more light into a firm that once preferred the shadows — and, on the side, a late-night DJ habit the tabloids never quite ignored.

David Michael Solomon (born January 17, 1962) was born in Hartsdale, New York, and grew up in a middle-class Jewish household in Scarsdale, Westchester County, where he attended Edgemont Junior-Senior High School. He described his childhood as typical and unremarkable, raised alongside two brothers in a close-knit family environment that emphasized familial bonds and personal relationships.

These parental examples contributed to Solomon's early development, fostering a foundation of relational priorities from his father and rigorous work habits from his mother, amid the cultural expectations in his community where traditional paths like medicine were common for young Jewish men, though he ultimately pursued finance. During his youth, Solomon gained practical experience through part-time jobs, including scooping ice cream at a local Baskin-Robbins and serving as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, which complemented the grounded, value-driven home life.