Who Is David Solomon? Goldman Sachs Names DJ-ing Banker CEO To Replace Lloyd Blankfein

Global investment bank Goldman Sachs announced on Tuesday the appointment of its new CEO, a banker who also happens to DJ and collect wine in his spare time.

David M. Solomon, the company’s current president, will replace Lloyd Blankfein as CEO in October, Goldman Sachs said in a statement. Blankfein, who ran the firm since 2006 and guided it through a financial crisis, will retire from his position as chairman.

The news comes as the company reported improved financial earnings, beating expectations for its second quarter, CNBC reported.

"I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to lead Goldman Sachs and I appreciate the confidence Lloyd and the Board of Directors have placed in me," Solomon said in a statement. "I am excited about the opportunities for growth and know how vital our culture of client service and teamwork is to our success."

However, the 54-year-old perhaps breaks the mold of a traditional country club CEO. The native of Westchester County, New York, has an affinity for dance music, practices yoga, collects wine and moonlights as a DJs at least once a month in clubs in Miami and New York under the moniker D-Sol.

"I always loved music," Solomon said in a Goldman Sachs podcast. "I was a very analog guy. When I was in college, I must have had over 1,000 LPs, vinyl albums."

Solomon also produces his own music and in January released a remix of Fleetwood Mac's song, "Don't Stop." Under the record label Crowd Records, Solomon re-released the song with an extended version on Spotify and Apple Music in June.

He's also an avid wine collector and doesn't mind toting bottles from his cellar to restaurants.

Solomon graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and government from Hamilton College, a private university in Clinton, New York, with less than 2,000 undergraduates.

After working for Drexler Burnham and Bear Stearns, he moved on to Goldman Sachs in 1999 as an investment banker after heading the investment banking division at Bear Stearns. Solomon rose through Goldman’s ranks and earned his role leading its investment banking unit in 2006.

In a podcast in September 2017, Solomon seemed to strike a pragmatic and versatile approach amid the bull market.

"We are extremely focused on finding ways, in a business that continues to change, to add value to our asset management clients -- one of the things that we can bring to the table that are really differentiated. We do play in some of the passive management products: we have an ETF business that we're building and we're growing. There's no question that there is a time and place for those products," said Solomon.

He also boasted of the famed investment firm's ability to promote a healthy workplace for employees.

"You have to create an atmosphere where people can work hard but also have opportunities to have a life, play hard and to have some balance in all of that," Solomon said. "It's not an easy thing to get right but I think it's our job to figure out how to do that. We've done a lot to set some boundaries."