Former Head of Goldman’s Marcus Unit Leaving Company

A former head of Goldman Sachs’ mass-market retail effort, Marcus, is reportedly leaving the bank.

Peeyush Nahar, who joined Goldman Sachs in 2021 to lead the retail banking business after having been an executive at Amazon and Uber, will take on an advisory role, according to a Friday (Feb. 10) report by Bloomberg that cited unnamed sources.

Nahar is the latest of several executives recruited to aid in the retail banking effort who had left the firm and was the last to run Marcus before it was broken up in a reorganization at Goldman Sachs, according to the report.

The Silicon Valley veteran was hired away from Uber in 2021 to run Marcus after having supervised workforces that built out software for insurance, payments and FinTech services. Before that, he worked in different positions at Amazon.

The latest move comes about a month after Goldman Sachs reported that Platform Solutions — its new division that includes some functions that had been part of Marcus — lost $1.2 billion during the first three quarters of 2022, $1 billion in 2021 and $783 million in 2020.

Platform Solutions includes consumer platforms, such as partnerships offering credit cards and point-of-sale (POS) financing, transaction banking and other services for corporate and institutional clients.

About a week after that announcement, Goldman Sachs executives said during an earnings call that the outlook for 2023 remains uncertain on a macro level but that the company is seeking to scale Platform Solutions toward profitability.

Management said the division would focus on transaction banking, point-of-sale and GreenSky.

The decision to fold Marcus into Platform Solutions and other operating segments was reported to be the subject of conflict between CEO David Solomon and other executives, as Solomon wanted the bank to have a primary checking relationship with customers who would also be part of its digital banking platform.

Goldman Sachs had sunk billions into Marcus and Solomon had dedicated his time since 2019 to building a full-service digital bank. It was reported at the time that the move showed the firm’s further distancing from its struggling retail consumer banking dreams and that there could be exits from the top.