Friedman joined Goldman Sachs & Co. in 1966, the same year as Robert Rubin, with whom he would later share chairmanship of the investment bank. He stayed for 28 years, rising through the ranks to become a partner in 1973, and was named vice chairman of the investment bank in 1987 and co-chairman in 1990.

In 1994, bad bets on the direction of interest rates caused Goldman's profits to plunge to $500 million, a fraction of the $2.6 billion they made the previous year. The drop spurred an exodus of senior partners, but Friedman's September resignation still came as a surprise to many. The man who succeeded him as chairman and CEO, current New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, is widely credited with taking the company in a new direction, which included going public in 1999.

In 1998, Friedman joined the insurance and investment firm Marsh & McLennan, working as a senior principal for their investment arm. He currently serves as the chairman of the board of the private equity firm Stone Point Capital, which spun off from Marsh & McLennan.

Political Ties

After leaving Goldman Sachs, Friedman turned his focus to politics. In 1999, Bill Clinton appointed Friedman to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. In 2005, Bush named Friedman chairman of that board, a surprise second-term replacement for Brent Scowcroft. He has been chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Board, an independent body that assesses the state of national intelligence, since January 2006.

Friedman served as a Bush adviser on economic policy and director of the National Economic Council from December 2002 to December 2004, although his appointment was controversial due to the size of his investment portfolio. He left the post as part of an exodus of Republican advisers.

In January 2008 Friedman became director and chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was appointed by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, which is headed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and made up of mainly career academics and civil servants.

In the fall of that year, Friedman helped oversee a Wall Street bailout that, among other things, allowed Goldman Sachs to stay afloat by becoming a bank holding company. Goldman also received a $10 billion capital injection.

In May 2009, a Wall Street Journal article questioned Friedman's ties to the bank.

A few days later, Friedman submitted his resignation, saying he had remained on the board "to provide continuity," but that his work had been "mischaracterized as improper."

Show less