Pete Buttigieg hires former Goldman Sachs executive as national policy director

[BeyondGeography]

Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg has hired a former Goldman Sachs vice president and Google executive to run his policy shop, his campaign announced Thursday. Sonal Shah, now executive director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University, will be the campaign’s national policy director. Shah worked at Goldman Sachs from 2004 to 2007 as a vice president, according to her LinkedIn page. She then worked for Google as its head of global development initiatives from 2007 to 2009.

...In a statement, Buttigieg’s national press secretary, Chris Meagher, said that while at Goldman, Shah “wasn’t involved in any deals nor did she benefit from any deals.”

“She developed and managed Goldman Sachs’ environmental strategy. She trained bankers to ask environmental questions, managed the grants to non-profits, and worked with their real estate team on how to build more green buildings,” he said.

...In early 2017, Shah cheered President Donald Trump’s hiring of Goldman executive Dina Powell, first as an economic assistant and later as deputy national security adviser.

“Great choice. Dina Powell will be great. Trump hires another executive from Goldman Sachs,” Shah wrote in a Twitter post.

Link to tweet

More at https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/buttigieg-hires-former-goldman-sachs-executive-as-policy-director.html

[rogue emissary]

1. It won't matter or be a tiny blip of news since he's a man.

[rogue emissary]

27. How am I a troll by giving my opinion?

[LonePirate]

2. This is disgusting and an exceptionally bad decision from Mayor Pete.

[leftofcool]

3. You mean because he hired someone who works on environmental policies?

[DrToast]

4. Why?

[LonePirate]

7. Did you not read the thread title or see the embedded tweet?

Nobody from a Wall Street bank or investment firm has any business being in charge of the policy team of any Democratic presidential contender. Nothing good can come from this appointment. For crying out loud, she was ecstatic when one of her own joined 45's administration. That should tell you everything you need to know about her.

[True Dough]

10. See post #8 n/t

[DrToast]

19. Not only that, but I read MORE than the thread title.

Go figure.

[LonePirate]

20. Ah, so you're comfortable with a Goldman Sachs lackey blocking any/all beneficial economic policies?

She had no business being in the Obama administration and she certainly should have no place in a possible Buttigieg administration. But I guess the status quo is perfectly fine with some people.

[DrToast]

23. You don't have an accurate understanding of what advisors do

They can’t actually block anything.

[LonePirate]

30. Do you think she is going to approve or release a policy aimed at reining in the 1% or corporations?

She is in a position to shape policy and her previous ties to Goldman Sachs - ties that are apparently still strong - should automatically disqualify her from coming anywhere close to economic or fiscal policy.

[SouthernProgressive]

5. After doing a bit of reading...

It looks like a really good hire. He keeps impressing me more and more.

[George II]

50. C'mon man...READING??

If he was an executive at Goldman Sachs, he obviously has a proven record of successful management and administration. The fact that he did it at Goldman Sachs shouldn't matter.

[SouthernProgressive]

53. I'm kind of funny like that.

Like so many of us I do have an initial negative reaction to those from "Goldman Sachs." But that is the real point of articles like this. Hoping people simply react without reading more. Just read the one thing and leave it there.

I find it to be such a bad way to actually judge individuals.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. This is disqualifying.

[True Dough]

9. See post #8 n/t

[StarfishSaver]

28. Do you just cut and paste this particular comment

You seem to think that every candidate but Sanders should be disqualified

[Lordquinton]

33. The things that have been normalized these days

Mahalo Hassan!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. Mahalo!

[cwydro]

35. Didn't I read somewhere that BS compared Biden to the orange shitgibbon?

Pretty sure I read that somewhere...

[Thekaspervote]

40. Yes, over Biden's plan to ramp up the ACA rather than call for Medicare for all

[LanternWaste]

46. Quite the allegation.

You should place it on the front of a t-shirt... more traction that way.

I'm guessing the reponse will be little more than the back of the t-shirt. Symmetry is a beautiful thing.

[True Dough]

8. She's so evil that she worked for President Obama!

Sonal Shah is the Founding Executive Director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation and Professor at Georgetown University.

Sonal served as Deputy Assistant to the President for President Obama and founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She has extensive experience in the public sector including as an international economist at the Department of Treasury, setting set up the central bank in Bosnia, working post conflict reconstruction in Kosovo, and implementing poverty reduction strategies in Africa and financial crises in Asia and Latin America.

She has extensive private sector experience. At Google, Sonal led technology initiative for civic voice and investing for impact as the head of Global Development Initiatives. At Goldman Sachs, she developed the environmental strategy and ran the initiatives, including investing clean technologies at Goldman Sachs.

https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/person/sonal-shah/


So the naysayers in this thread can all respond now and disavow Obama, okay?

[BeyondGeography]

12. So did Larry Summers

Hopefully, he doesn’t get into the circle.

Pete’s his own man, nothing wrong with that. But he’s still mostly an unknown so I don’t know how smart a hire this is optically. Add this to his fundraising philosophy and he will move to the center in a lot of people’s minds. Maybe that’s exactly where he wants to be.

[True Dough]

13. Summers worked throughout both of Clinton's terms as well

Sometimes we don't always agree with these policy-wonk choices but there's more to it than surface-level optics. I trust Pete's judgment, but not without limitations. If he brought someone like Karl Rove into the fold then I'd head for the door faster than you could blink.

[MBS]

14. Thank you. n/t

[Lordquinton]

38. Obama was wrong to hire her

We can correct mistakes made in the past.

[Princetonian]

11. Interesting. Pete is really going on a hiring spree. I wonder what Warren thinks of Dina Powell.

That would be good to know.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. I think Obama is supporting Buttigieg behind the scenes,

which is why he hasn't heartily endorsed Biden.

[BeyondGeography]

16. That's possible but he won't "heartily endorse" until there's a clear winner

It’s tradition.

[LuvNewcastle]

17. Yeah, his endorsement would give a candidate a big edge.

Wouldn't really be fair.

[JI7]

18. no he isn't

[Tarheel_Dem]

31. Ummm.....No!

[Blue_true]

21. So we should kick talented progressives to the curb because of who they worked for?

I prefer to see what type of person she is.

[BeyondGeography]

22. Maybe he heard about her about through this guy

Link to tweet

[Blue_true]

25. I stand by my post. It is all about the person, not what they do.

I get a sense that you view all lobbying and having a high office in a big company as signs of evil. I don't agree with that viewpoint.

[Celerity]

41. Steve Elmendorf, was senior advisor to House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt for 12 years,

eventually becoming his chief of staff.

http://teamsubjectmatter.com/team/steve-elmendorf/

Steve is a Subject Matter founder and partner, and is widely recognized as one of D.C.’s preeminent political strategists. With a career on Capitol Hill and in politics spanning more than 30 years, Steve’s tenure in Washington has been grounded in daily interaction with the White House, administration officials, senators, members of Congress and leading interest groups on the front lines of the economic, social, domestic, national security and foreign policy debates in the last decades. Steve rose to the highest level Democratic staffer in the House of Representatives as Chief of Staff to House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, and upon leaving the Hill served as a senior advisor to the Gephardt, Kerry and Clinton presidential campaigns. Since 2006, Steve has represented some of the nation’s most important corporations, trade associations and organizations on critical legislative and regulatory issues, helping to drive their businesses, build their brands and expand their market shares. He has been a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, and is consistently listed among the most influential leaders in Washington by Politico, The Hill, GQ and other national publications.

Sounds like a real nefarious character.

[betsuni]

24. Anti-Democratic propaganda: Goldman Sachs is 100% evil, will forever corrupt anyone daring to

pass under the "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" sign above its door. There are no progressives on Wall St., or working as lobbyists or for corporations. They are the enemy, Them. Anyone who has had any of those jobs and is now working for a campaign has no will of their own and must continue to mindlessly obey the orders of the 1%. Donations from people with those jobs to Democratic campaigns are corrupting bribes from wealthy elites who will stop at nothing to defeat progressive ideas blah blah blah.

Thank goodness Pete didn't give a PAID SPEECH at Goldman Sachs. That's the worst thing, corruption wise.

[StarfishSaver]

29. Le"s disqualify every Democrat who has experience and is expert enough to be paid for it

[Fiendish Thingy]

32. Deal breaker for me - I thought he would make an excellent VP on the ticket, but not now nt

[Celerity]

37. What, because he hired a former high level Obama WH employee?

[Skittles]

42. not all Obama choices were good

[Celerity]

43. in this case it was and is a good hire

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2019, 05:34 AM - Edit history (1)

Look at the area in which she worked for 3 years back a decade and half ago for G-S. It was in environmental and green initiatives. Knee-jerk responses by people the instant they see a certain name (G-S in this case) is self-defeating and inaccurate when it come to judging said people. She had nothing to do with the predatory aspects of the bank, which came from the very top (and completely separate) parts of the firm.

This article is a shit-stir, it picks out one small facet in her career and distorts it, magnifies it to the point it tries to define her by it. It is pure rot, and tries to paint it as something sinister, when it was not.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonal_Shah_(economist)


Public service

Shah held a variety of U.S. Department of Treasury positions from 1995 until 2001. She was the director of the office overseeing strategy and programs for sub-Saharan Africa, which included debt relief, development programs and World Bank/International Monetary Fund strategies. She worked with the Ministries of Finance in Bosnia and Kosovo to design the post-war banking system. During the Asian financial crisis, she served as a senior adviser to U.S. Treasury officials who were coordinating the U.S. response.

Private sector

From 2001-2003, Shah served at the Center for Global Development as Director of Operations and Programs, helping set up all aspects of the strategy, infrastructure and operations.

From 2003-2004, she worked at the Center for American Progress as an Associate Director, advising current and former Congressional and government executives on a wide variety of issues including trade, outsourcing and post-conflict reconstruction.

In 2004, Shah joined Goldman Sachs as a Vice President, focusing on their environmental strategy and implementation. She worked on green initiatives, which included informing clients and bankers on alternative energy opportunities and advising them on how to implement environmental, social and governance criteria for all investments.

In 2007, Shah joined Google.org as the head of Global Development Initiatives, and worked closely with Executive Director Larry Brilliant in guiding global economic development efforts. She also worked extensively on the growth of small and medium sized enterprises in partnership with the Omidyar Network and the Soros Foundation.

Return to public service

On April 2009, Shah was appointed director of the newly created White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. The objective of this office is to coordinate governmental efforts to aid innovative nonprofit groups and social entrepreneurs to address pressing social problems. Shah is also working with the National Security Council to bring a global perspective to these efforts.

[Skittles]

45. yes, she sounds like a peach

[BootinUp]

36. Cool, sounds like she knows the data and

How to get good data. The policies will be Pete’s.

[Thekaspervote]

39. Biden was shamed earlier today for hiring someone "not pure enough"

More circular firing squad

[Celerity]

44. I agree but then there was this a while back.........

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287182630

with this comment

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287182630#post3

by the way, that anti-Harris/pro Biden OP poster in that thread kept up the false bashing (exact same thing, ie. misrepresentation of actual role and length of time, etc, going on in this OP we are in now) in other threads

see my response to them here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287184812#post59

[Amimnoch]

47. I'll take an environmental champion that worked at Goldman

over a staff of ex-Stein supporters that helped give us Trump any day.

[BeyondGeography]

48. And a big YAY for Trump's Goldman hires!

Without that nausea-inducing bit I wouldn't have even bothered posting this.

[Amimnoch]

49. big whoop.

Six months before joining in any political campaign she single line congratulated a former co-worker on a new job.

Pardon me if I don't run to grab my torch or pitch-fork.



I'm on twitter, I've congratulated co-workers who support Cheetolini in their own promotions. Means nothing.

It's also pretty obvious, looking down her feed over the last couple of months that, as a person, she is opposed to most of the actions coming out of the Cheeto house.

[BeyondGeography]

51. The impression is she thinks its great that multiple Goldman people hooked up with Trump

Comparing that with you and me congratulating our fellow Lake Wobegoners on their comparatively trivial career moves...uh, right.

[Amimnoch]

52. It does still compare.

Just because we aren't connected at that level doesn't change what this was.. just a congratulations to a former co-worker.

I'm dedicated to removing Cheetolini and Mcturtle from office, yet I can say, on either LinkedIn or Twitter, where I maintain a professional presence, if one of my co-workers got an appointment, I would still congratulate them in a similar manner.. even as I work to see their new employer replaced.

Other than her congratulations, she seems well suited to our causes:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Something funny happened while i was trying to look up some of her history, I found one post where, for a minute I was about to change my position, agree with you and post this next one here.. luckily I read the article and realized that she wasn't cheering Trump's election, but what Elizabeth warren was saying in the linked article:

Link to tweet

[Hoyt]

54. Current Exec Director of Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University

doesn't sound so bad to me.

[comradebillyboy]

55. Am I suposed to be outraged that Pete hired an expert business and finance?

She looks really competent compared to some other prominent campaign staff picks.