The best stepping stone for getting a senior position at Goldman Sachs’ Marcus business

There has been a bit of a recent exodus of senior staff from Goldman Sachs’ online consumer banking business, Marcus, with at least 10 key employees having left the digital retail bank since late 2018. Losing its chief product officer, Michael Cerda, was the big headliner. But with subtractions come additions. And several new senior Marcus employees have similar resumes as the old guard: they worked at Capital One or another credit card provider.

As we reported earlier in the week, the latest big-name hire is Chad Wallace, the former head of digital client experience for Capital One’s commercial bank. He started with Marcus as a managing director in Dallas earlier this month. At least 10 former and current senior members of the digital bank worked at the financial firm mostly known for its credit cards.

Fellow Capital One alums include newly-named partner Boe Hartman, the chief information officer at GS Bank, the retail arm that operates Marcus. There’s also Steve Schroeder, the head of technology for Marcus deposits who joined Goldman last year, and Alexandros Zoppos, its head of technology and development operations who spent eight years at Capital One before leaving in 2015 to help with the original build-out of Marcus. Both worked at Capital One right before coming over to Goldman. Darin Cline, an MD who was Marcus's director of consumer operations before leaving earlier this year, worked at Capital One and then Lending Club before joining.

Fellow credit card provider American Express is another breeding ground for Marcus, though the company appears to account for a few less senior-level hires than Capital One. Lei Chen spent two decades at AmEx before joining Marcus in December as an MD and its head of fraud risk. Former chief operating and revenue officer at Marcus, Colin Kennedy, joined during the Clarity Money acquisition but previously worked for more than a decade at American Express. He left in February to join Stripe. Many other American Express alums help fill out Marcus’ VP-level staff.

Bottom line: if you want a leadership at Goldman’s online bank, working at Capital One or its close competitors is a good start.

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