The Power of Connections
The uniform response when quizzing people on what exactly it is that givers Peter Sutherland the winning edge is that his unique mix of great charm and directness has served him well over the course of his illustrious career. Peter Sutherland was instrumental in negotiating the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and it has been well documented that in order to get the accord passed, he sometimes kept negotiators at the table late into the night. The deal came together after almost a decade of negotiations, and the very gavel he used throughout now sits on his desk at his office in London where he serves as chairman of the arm of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that oversees Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
In 1995 he rejoined Goldman Sachs, where he had previously worked as an adviser. Eugene Fife then head of the firm’s London office recruited him after they met on a London-to-New York flight. Not only current but also former Goldman Sachs employees say Mr. Sutherland gave the bank a lift when it was trying to break into Europe.
It’s uniformly accepted that Peter was ideal for winning business away from some of London’s most illustrious and well established banks as well as European financial firms. He brought with him an impressive amount of extremely useful contacts. Not only that but he is also known to be close to Italian Prime Minister Prodi. In more recent times he accompanied former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson on trips to China and Russia before Paulson became treasury secretary last year. Not only this, he also helped forge a relationship between Goldman and Mittal Steel Co. That paid dividends when Mittal hired Goldman as lead banker in its $39 billion takeover of Arcelor SA last year. By all accounts Peter Sutherland has been instrumental in some keys bits of business which have had a massive impact on the development of Goldman.
