Goldman Sachs’s consumer-bank CFO is leaving for JPMorgan

Dive Brief:

• Sherry Ann Mohan, CFO of Goldman Sachs’s consumer-banking arm, Marcus, is leaving to join JPMorgan Chase as CFO for business banking in August, according to a Friday memo seen by CNBC.
• She’s the second executive in as many months to be leaving Marcus for the nation’s largest bank. Marcus’s head of product, Sonali Divilek, will become head of digital channels and products for consumer and community banking at JPMorgan Chase this summer, the bank announced last month.
• Banks often see accelerated turnover in the spring because executives who are planning to leave tend to do so after year-end bonuses are paid out in the first quarter. However, Goldman has seen an extraordinary talent drain this year, as its general counsel, communications chief, head of diversity and asset-management co-head have all announced their departure since March.

Dive Insight:

Within Goldman, Marcus lost two of its top executives in late February when the consumer bank’s chief, Omer Ismail, and its head of large partnerships, David Stark, fled to join Walmart’s burgeoning fintech startup.

Notably, some of Marcus’s executive departures have come shorty after promotions. Ismail had served in the digital bank’s top role since Jan. 1 and left less than two months later. Divilek, too, had only been head of product since her predecessor, Adam Dell, announced he was stepping down in mid-January.

Mohan is leaving after nearly 15 years at parent company Goldman Sachs.

Sarah Youngwood, CFO of JPMorgan’s retail division, called Mohan “an exceptional leader whose talents I’ve long admired,” according to CNBC.

“I’m thrilled to have her join our company,” said Youngwood, who will oversee Mohan at JPMorgan.

Goldman has downplayed executive flight this year. “Our business has serious momentum and a deep and growing bench of talent,” Andrew Williams, a bank spokesperson, told Bloomberg when news broke that Ismail and Stark were leaving.

For its part, Marcus has begun rebuilding its top ranks. It rehired its former chief risk officer, Brian King, to become head of business operations after a short stint at Wells Fargo. It also promoted from within, tapping Chantal Garcia as its chief operating officer and head of talent strategy; Scott Young as chief commercial officer; Abhinav Anand to become its top lending executive; and Marcos Rosenberg to lead deposits and investments in the U.S.

But the consumer bank has seen a raft of departures among its rank and file, too, amid an aggressive product rollout schedule that, since the start of 2020, has included the launch of a Marcus app, checking accounts, the Insights personal finance management tool, the robo-advisory service Invest, and work to transition GM’s credit-card portfolio.

Marcus has lost at least one-quarter of the engineers who had been a part of the consumer bank’s early days, one engineer who left late last year told Business Insider, although Goldman disputes that figure.

“The departure estimates are overstated and our business continues to be a magnet for talent,” Williams said, adding that attrition stood at about 14% in the past year across the consumer technology group.

The parent company, meanwhile, hired 320 employees in mainland China and Hong Kong over the first four months of 2021, and plans to bring on 100 more before the end of the year, an anonymous source told Bloomberg.