Steven George Mandis

Steven George Mandis
Born 1970
Chicago, Illinois
Education AB, MA, M.Phil, PhD
Alma mater University of Chicago
Columbia University
Occupation Investor and Business Executive
Notable work What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider’s Story of Organizational Drift and its Unintended Consequences
Awards Ellis Island Medal of Honor

Steven George Mandis (born in 1970) is an American investor, professor and author. He is the founder of Kalamata Capital and an adjunct associate professor in finance and economics at Columbia University Business School, having previously worked at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and McKinsey. Mandis is also the author of What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider’s Story of Organizational Drift and its Unintended Consequences.

Early life

Steven Mandis was born in Chicago, Illinois as one of three children to his parents, Greek emigrees George and Theoni. Mandis spent his childhood in Chicago and then continued to grow up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mandis attended Forest Hills Central High School, where he and his brother made the Michigan high school state championship final in doubles tennis.[1]

Education

He received an A.B. from The University of Chicago.[2] After his career on Wall Street he enrolled in Columbia University and in 2010 Mandis received an M.A. in Museum Anthropology. In 2013 he then also received an M.Phil in Sociology and then completed his Ph.D. in Sociology as an honorary Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow. He has stated that while he had a background in business, he felt that training in the social sciences would broaden his perspective.[3]

Business career

Mandis began his career at Goldman Sachs in 1992[4] and worked in a variety of departments. He began his time there as a mergers-and-acquisitions banker,[5] where he worked on the $72 billion merger of the AT&T Broadband Business with Comcast, the sale of privately held Larson-Juhl to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the corporate raid defense of VISX versus Carl Icahn.[6][7][8][9][10] He then moved to the proprietary trading department,[5] where he helped build the Special Situations Proprietary Trading Group (SSG) within the Fixed Income, Commodities and Currencies Division; which became one of the largest proprietary trading groups on Wall Street.[11][12][13][14] There he worked under Henry M. Paulson Jr., before Paulson was promoted from Co-Head of the Investment Banking Division to President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs.[15]

In 2004 Mandis left Goldman to co-found an alternative asset management company.[16] Mandis later worked as a senior advisor to McKinsey & Company, where during the financial crisis, he advised McKinsey on strategic, business process, risk and organizational issues facing financial institutions and related regulatory authorities. He then worked as an executive at Citigroup in various roles including Chief of Staff to its President and Chief Operating Officer; Vice Chairman of its Institutional Clients Group (ICG); and a member of ICG's Executive, Management and Risk Management Committees.[2][17][18][19]

In 2013 Mandis founded Kalamata Capital, a small business finance company that he developed after investing in two companies in the field, including RapidAdvance—a company later sold to an entity controlled by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert. Mandis funded Kalamata with his own money, naming it after the area of Greece his parents are from.[20][21]

Academic career

Mandis left Wall Street to become a full-time academic in 2012.[22] He has taught at Columbia University both in New York and abroad in Madrid.[21] At Columbia Business School Mandis teaches MBA and Executive MBA students, focusing on investment banking and financial crisis topics. He is also an instructor in the Masters of Sports Management Program.[23] He has also developed lectures and courses for underprivileged high school students in Harlem, New York on the subject financial responsibility.[24]

In 2013 Mandis published the book What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider’s Story of Organizational Drift and its Unintended Consequences, on the topic of the cultural change that occurred at Goldman Sachs between 1992 and 2004, as well as the range of 1979 to 2013. The Wall Street Journal wrote of the work that it provided “a social-science study.” They commented further that, “Mandis starts from the premise that Goldman has suffered "organizational drift," and tries to explain what internal and external factors influenced the changes. In doing so, he (perhaps inadvertently) explains just as much about Washington's regulators as he does about Goldman itself.”[4]

The book is based upon his PhD dissertation work at Columbia, for which he spoke to more than fifty people involved with the firm, including partners, regulators, analysts, clients, and so forth. In the work he shies away from his own experiences at the firm, focusing instead on the institution. One of the main themes of the book is the effect of shareholder relations on the firm’s client-relations, according to The Financial Times.[25]

University of Pennsylvania Professor Alexandra Michel wrote of the work that in the work Mandis acts as “a fact evaluator, scrutinizing each piece of evidence, detecting possible biases, moving on to additional and independent sources of evidence, and carefully qualifying conclusions.”[26] The New York Times wrote of the book that, “Those interested in all things Goldman will find it useful for its appendices, which include a timeline of the bank’s history and biographical sketches of its top leaders. There is also a complete list of partners at the time of the I.P.O. and the value of their stock holdings after the first day of trading.”[5]

The book was published by Harvard Business Press. Mandis has also contributed to the Harvard Business Review blog.[27]

Recognition

Mandis was awarded an Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2012. In 2014 his book won the Gold Axiom Business Book Award for Corporate History.[28] Mandis received a "shout out" from Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption television show on December 10, 2013 for mentioning Tony in his book.[29]

Personal life

Mandis is a triathlete, who has completed several IRONMAN triathlons,[30] and lives in New York City.[5][31]

References

  1. ↑ "Author of 'What Happened to Goldman Sachs' recalls his days at Forest Hills Central High School". MLive.com. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  2. 1 2 "Columbia Business School Directory".
  3. ↑ "Alumni Profile: Steven Mandis". gsas.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2016-04-13.
  4. 1 2 Mary Kissel (10 October 2013). "Review: What Happened to Goldman Sachs - WSJ". WSJ.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Log In - The New York Times".
  6. ↑ "AT&T Broadband To Merge with Comcast.". AT&T Comcast Corp.
  7. ↑ Teitelbaum, Richard. "Buffet Says Sell To Me, Not 'Porn Shop' as Growth Dips.". Bloomberg.
  8. ↑ "-"With Takeover Attempt Behind It, Visx Looks to Its Future."". Ocular Surgery News.
  9. ↑ "VISX Responds to Icahn Letter; Urges Stockholders Reject the Icahn Slate and Protect the Value.".
  10. ↑ Kraeuter, Chris. "Icahn Focuses on Visx.".
  11. ↑ Atlas, Riva D. "'Goldman Sachs' on a Resume Gives Continuing Rewards". New York Times.
  12. ↑ Rappaport, Liz. "Goldman to Shut Global Macro Trading Desk". Wall Street Journal.
  13. ↑ "Goldman Prop Portfolio Manager Mandis Leaves; Named Managing Principal, Vice-Chairman and Chief Investment Officer for Special Credit and Select Opportunity Products.".
  14. ↑ "Alternative Asset Management Acquisition Corp, EX-99.2.". SEC. 2008.
  15. ↑ Spiro, Leah Nathans, Gary Silverman. "The Coup at Goldman.". Bloomberg Businessweek.
  16. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/business/goldman-sachs-on-a-resume-gives-continuing-rewards.html?_r=0
  17. ↑ Randall Smith. "Citi Taps Goldman Vet As Institional Clients Vice Chair.". Wall Street Journal.
  18. ↑ "Senior Management. Citi Institutional Clients Group". Citigroup.
  19. ↑ http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/07/21/citi-taps-goldman-vet-as-institutional-clients-vice-chair/<
  20. ↑ Zeke Faux,Max Abelson (11 July 2014). "Trying to be a Nice Guy in Small-Business Lending". Bloomberg.com.
  21. 1 2 Zeke Faux and Max Abelson (10 July 2014). "How a Goldman Sachs Ethicist Became a High-Rate Lender". Bloomberg.com.
  22. ↑ Justin Baer (27 September 2013). "In Book on Goldman, Former Trader Hedges His Bets". WSJ.
  23. ↑ Columbia Business School. "Steven George Mandis". Columbia Business School Directory.
  24. ↑ "Transcripts.". CNN.
  25. ↑ "‘What Happened to Goldman Sachs’ by Steven Mandis". Financial Times.
  26. ↑ http://asq.sagepub.com/content/59/4/NP52
  27. ↑ "Civil Society and the Reform of Finance".
  28. ↑ http://www.axiomawards.com/Axiom_Results_Listing_2014.pdf
  29. ↑ "PTI". ESPN.com.
  30. ↑ "Steven G. Mandis - Columbia University School of Professional Studies".
  31. ↑ "EX-HALCYON HEDGIE PROVES EVERY ALUM OF GOLDMAN SACHS DOESN’T TURN TO GOLD". New York Post. 31 August 2008.

External links

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