Sara Naison-Tarajano becomes fourth (or fifth) Ayco chief in eight years, third in the past year, but this Goldman Sachs partner could succeed -- even if she declines to live in Albany

David Solomon is promoting Sara Naison-Tarajano to head the $28-billion Goldman Sachs Ayco (GS) RIA, following leaders who took the job and then left the company.

Experts say the 48-year-old may indeed be the right person at the right time to unlock the trap job – with reverberations for Goldman's retail advice future and the whole company. 

“Ayco has been a lost soul for about 40 years,” says Philip Waxelbaum, principal with Masada Consulting. “It's a phenomenal unit that nobody's figured out. Now here we are and ‘eureka,' they may have it.”

Still, it's a tightrope walk, says Waxelbaum.

“Ayco is a nice place with nice people [and Goldman Sachs is what it is],” he says. “If she can wear both those masks, she's got a shot.”

The Goldman Sachs CEO has watched former heads Larry Restieri and David Fox leave the position --and Goldman – since last Spring.

Fox, 52, only took the job last year and is leaving for retirement after about nine months. Tim O'Hara left for Rockefeller Capital in 2018 just before Solomon took the CEO reins.

That's not to mention Joe Duran who was co-head, with Restieri, of the Personal Financial Management Group. It was renamed the Workplace and Personal Wealth business and included Ayco. 

He handed off his duties to Dave Dase in May 2023.

Right stuff

Yet, Solomon may have played ace this time in Naison-Tarajano, a Goldman Sachs lifer who came straight from Yale and made partner as a young age of 42.

Sources say she checks important boxes like being able to stand toe-to-toe with the uber wealthy, yet, she also has wealth management experience. She also happens to be a millennial, or close enough.

Neither its people nor its capabilities make Ayco a “lost soul,” three sources, including Waxelbaum, say. Rather, it's the way it's never quite been folded into Goldman Sachs, despite being a wholly owned unit.. 

Yet, it was drifting, even before Goldman Sachs bought it, they say.

Founded in 1971, Ayco was acquired by American Express in 1983 in hopes of making it a member-benefit for its top-tier clients. But it never really clicked.

Amex sold it back to its management team in a buyout in 1994, and Goldman bought it in 2003 when it had about $7 billion of AUM.

Saving the baby

Solomon is also more likely to succeed, Waxelbaum says, because he has doggedly engaged in a process of figuring out what Goldman can, and can't do, in wealth management. See: Goldman Sachs CEO calls United Capital debacle 'lesson learned,' amid RIA exodus, and operating losses

With United Capital, he experimented down market. It didn't work. He gave it autonomy. It didn't work. See: Goldman Sachs salvages $349-million 'gain' from its United Capital misadventure that may also be a $400-million haircut

Yet, Solomon didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. See: Goldman Sachs chief goes off -- in a good way -- about RIAs, promising more 'footprint' and 'partnerships,' and doubles down by elevating seven 'wealth' execs to powerful management committee

Naison-Tarajano is as ready as anyone could be, says an industry recruiter who asked not to be named.

“She absolutely and absurdly deserving of it,” the headhunter says, though noting it won't help that she, like Restieri, will try to run the Albany-based unit from Manhattan. 

She will also have split duties as she continues to serve as Global Head of the Goldman Partner Office. 

The latter unit is Goldman Sachs's in-house family office for its partners and other high-level executives. Goldman has about 400 partners.

Strategic puzzle piece

Waxelbaum agrees but says he has to qualify his endorsement.

“The last person I would send into a retail environment is a Goldman Sachs partner,” he quips. “They may be the smartest people n the room but whoever picked one to run a retail operation?”

Solomon likely gets that Ayco is a far more strategic piece of the puzzle to his “One Goldman Sachs” vision of creating a single financial ecosystem for the uber wealthy and corporately powerful, Waxelbaum adds.

I need not succeed in “retail” per se.

“Ayco should not be looked at as a profit center,” he says. "It should be self-sustaining. It's kind of a cafeteria plan for rich guys. I'd make sure it's on my pitch deck as an investment banker."

Wealth funnel

Goldman Sachs declined to make Naison-Tarajano available for interviews, saying it is too early in her tenure. 

But the investment bank echoes some of the points made by RIA sources in its release about being used as a funnel for the broader $1.7-trillion “wealth” unit.

“Her appointment underscores Goldman Sachs’ commitment to growing its premier Wealth Management platform and the firm’s differentiated ability to harness One Goldman Sachs to serve clients,” it states.

“Goldman Sachs Ayco is a leading provider of company-sponsored financial planning and wealth management services, partnering with hundreds of corporations—including more than half of the Fortune 100.”

The blueprint of such a high-end wirehouse sales funnel already exists at Morgan Stanley. The “Morgan Stanley at Work” unit, however, also sprawls downmarket, Waxelbaum and an enterprise client both point out.

Schwab, with Dynasty Financial Partners and Open Arc, is now pursuing a strategy of picking off investors at the workplace level both for their assets and because executives serve as centers of influence. See: Schwab just announced another stock plan-related deal after helping OpenArc launch $129-billion stock plan RIA, an 'impactful funnel,' Cerulli analyst says

Unlike Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs does not have its own stock plan business but is known to be tops in advising on complex Fortune 100 executive compensation plans.

Gold plated

Naison-Tarajano joined Goldman as an analyst in its investment banking division in 1999 and was named managing director in 2012 and partner in 2020.

Goldman is sending a strong message by mentioning Naison-Tarajano got her start on the investment banking side of the house – and that it bodes well for her success, the headhunter source says. 

“Her trajectory shows she knows how to play the game,” the executive recruiter notes. “[Goldman-Ayco] lost some of the patina that if you have real money, Goldman Sachs is right for you. They're betting they'll be getting it back with her, a dyed-in-the-wool Goldman Sachs partner”

The Ayco $28 billion of AUM is based on the SEC ADV. The company says the amount is actually much higher, though it declined to say how much. Goldman's Ayco historical profile on its website states that it had $75 billion in 2018.