This image was lost some time after publication.

Who

Blankfein is the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. He took the top job in June of 2006 after his predecessor, Hank Paulson, moved to Washington to take the job of Treasury Secretary.

Backstory

Blankfein doesn't sport the typical Goldman pedigree—there are no tony New England boarding schools or summers in Martha's Vineyard in his past. Born in the Bronx, where his dad worked for the U.S. Postal Service, Blankfein grew up in a public housing project in Brooklyn and attended Harvard on financial aid. He went on to Harvard Law before joining the firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine and spending several years as a corporate tax lawyer. A "pre-life crisis" in the early 1980s convinced him to move to Wall Street. When he applied for a job at Goldman and was rejected, he took a position at as a gold salesman at J. Aron, a small commodities-trading house. The career shift apparently didn't sit well with his wife: She burst into tears when he told her he was giving up the partnership track at the law firm.

Mrs. Blankfein needn't have worried. After J. Aron was acquired by Goldman several years later, Lloyd began a speedy rise up the ladder at 85 Broad Street. In 1988, he was named a partner. Less than a decade later, he was running the firm's fixed income, currency and commodities division, Goldman's most profitable unit. In 2003, he was appointed president and COO, displacing John Thain, who had once been viewed as heir apparent. (He left shortly thereafter.) Blankfein was named chairman and CEO in 2006, after Hank Paulson was picked by President Bush to serve as Treasury Secretary.

Of note

When Blankfein took over as Goldman's CEO, he was something of a mystery to many of the firm's employees. Less flashy than many of his more polished peers, he hadn't taken the typical path to the top, working his way up the investment banking food chain. His appointment marked a changing of the guard of sorts for the firm, the elevation of a trader to the top job. (Blankfein's ascension had never been the plan: Paulson originally expected bankers John Thain and John Thornton to take over the firm one day.)

Since taking over arguably the most prestigious investment bank in the world, Blankfein has had to deal with his fair share of challenges. Although the global credit crisis didn't initially appear to pose a threat to Goldman when it first began to batter the firm's competitors in 2007, that changed in 2008 when the downturn deepened, Goldman's stock began to plummet, and one of the firm's largest trading partners, AIG, headed towards bankruptcy. In September 2008, with both investors and clients increasingly concerned about Goldman's ability to weather the storm, Blankfein announced plans to turn the firm into a commercial bank holding company. Days later Warren Buffett announced he planned to invest $5 billion in Goldman, a deal that both bolstered the firm's balance sheet as well as provided reassurance to jittery investors.

Keeping score

On top of his relatively modest $600,000 salary, which all Goldman partners receive, Blankfein was awarded a $53.4 million bonus for 2006. He did even better in 2007, collecting some $68.5 million in cash and stock.

Pet causes

Blankfein serves as a Robin Hood Foundation director, joining fellow finance heavyweights Steve Cohen, Dick Fuld, Paul Tudor Jones, and Glenn Dubin. Other favorite causes include Weill Cornell, Harvard, and the New York Historical Society. Once a financial aid student himself, he now co-chairs Harvard's financial-aid task force.

Personal

Lloyd is married to Laura Jacobs Blankfein, a former corporate lawyer. They have three kids; sons Alex and Jonathan are Harvard men like their father. Until recently, the Blankfeins lived at 941 Park Avenue, where ex-Merrill CEO Stan O'Neal was a neighbor. But they're on the move. In 2007, Blankfein paid $27 million for an apartment at 15 Central Park West, where he now shares the elevator with Dan Loeb, Sandy Weill, Sting, Bob Costas, and Denzel Washington. The family also owns a weekend home in the Hamptons.