GS Goldman Sachs Group Inc

By Liz Hoffman 

Martin Chavez is retiring from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where he was the face of a new breed of engineers ruling Wall Street and one of its most senior openly gay executives.

Mr. Chavez, who had once been considered a potential chief executive of the company and has been a co-head of its trading arm for the past 10 months, will retire at the end of the year, according to an internal memo.

He came up as a computer programmer in its trading arm and was a favorite of former Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, who promoted him to finance chief in 2017.

The job was an ill fit -- Mr. Chavez struggled on investor calls and the firm nearly flunked the government stress tests -- and he returned last year to the trading arm. There he has overseen Goldman's push to electronify the business, cut costs and move more of its client interactions onto apps and other digital pipelines.

Wall Street banks are leaning heavily on coders as more trading goes electronic, and Mr. Chavez has been a champion of Goldman's push to open up its internal technology to clients. The firm is building a subscription-based trading app called Marquee (an early version of it was dubbed "Marty" in Mr. Chavez's honor).

Mr. Chavez will be succeeded by Marc Nachmann, who is currently a London-based investment-banking executive. Mr. Nachmann came up designing derivatives for Goldman's own traders and commodities clients and is known as a wonky insider.

The change comes during a tough spell for Goldman's trading division. Postcrisis regulations and calm markets have cut its revenues 60% since 2009. It has been courting corporate clients and asset managers, while accommodating client preferences that have shifted to simpler products.

Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 03, 2019 11:04 ET (15:04 GMT)

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