David Solomon will become the sole operating chief and president at Goldman Sachs after Harvey Schwartz steps down next month. 
 
 David Solomon will become the sole operating chief and president at Goldman Sachs after Harvey Schwartz steps down next month. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News 
 
 David Solomon became the heir apparent at Goldman Sachs GS 0.22% Group Inc. Monday after his main rival for the top job abruptly resigned, moves that show the Wall Street powerhouse is continuing to move beyond its trading roots. 
 
 The surprise announcement came after Goldman’s board of directors last month anointed Mr. Solomon as the eventual successor to current Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, over co-President Harvey Schwartz, according to people familiar with the matter. 
 
 The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Mr. Blankfein could retire as soon as year-end, though he remains firmly in control of his exit. Messrs. Schwartz, 54, and Solomon, 56, who were jointly elevated to the No. 2 role in December 2016, were the top contenders to succeed him. 
 
 The two hail from different parts of the firm. Mr. Solomon is a longtime investment banker who DJs on the side. Mr. Schwartz, a karate black belt, scaled the ranks of Goldman’s trading arm on his way to becoming chief financial officer. 
 
 In choosing Mr. Solomon, Goldman is going with a business builder who is respected, if not universally loved, inside the firm. The move amounts to a bet that the coming decade will look little like the last one, as Goldman continues to evolve from a secretive trading powerhouse into a more entrepreneurial place. 
 
 The two men were told of the board’s decision last week, at which point Mr. Schwartz, who was informed upon his return from a West Coast trip, said he would leave, people familiar with the matter said. 
 
 Mr. Blankfein shared the news Monday morning with the firm’s management committee, a group of about 35 top officials. “Harvey’s leaving the firm,” the typically blunt CEO said, according to people briefed on the meeting. Mr. Solomon quickly canceled a planned trip to China. 
 
 For generations, power at Goldman has swung between bankers and traders. When Mr. Blankfein, a former trading chief, took over in 2006, that business was dominant. Since the financial crisis, though, it has faltered, sending Goldman into new businesses like consumer banking and low-fee index funds in search of growth. 
 
 Those changes were seen to favor Mr. Solomon. He is known less as a superstar deal maker than a strong manager, able to prune dead weight, motivate strivers and marshal Goldman’s resources behind big initiatives. 
 
 Harvey Schwartz Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News 
 
 “David is a pied piper, and I mean that in the best way,” said Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton Hotels Corp., who worked with Mr. Solomon at Bear Stearns. “People want to follow him.” 
 
 Mr. Solomon came to Wall Street in the mid-1980s, selling commercial paper at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Off duty, he played social planner to a group of college friends, organizing casino outings in Atlantic City and summer rentals in the Hamptons, where roommates would wake up to find him mowing the lawn. 
 
 After a stint at Bear Stearns, Mr. Solomon joined Goldman as a rare outside partner in 1999 and set about to build a junk-debt business. In 2006 he assumed responsibility for Goldman’s investment bankers, who advise companies on mergers and fundraisings. 
 
 Mr. Solomon is credited with professionalizing that division, which he ran for a decade. The unit’s profit margin doubled, even as some longtime bankers lamented the decline of collegiality and autonomy. 
 
 He had a policy of giving zero bonuses to the bottom 5% of employees, executives said. But he also spearheaded Goldman’s efforts to lighten the workload for junior bankers, and took a leading role in the firm’s effort to recruit and promote women. He built a debt capital-markets business that reported record revenues last year. 
 
 Mr. Schwartz, meanwhile, embodied Goldman’s profitable past, having scaled the ranks of its trading division. As finance chief from 2013 to 2016, Mr. Schwartz navigated the political and market forces that reshaped banking after the crisis, and was a strong hand in the areas of risk management and regulation. 
 
 Market Talk 11:04 ET - News that David Solomon has jumped to the front of the line to succeed Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is helping boost shares of the investment bank. The surprise announcement sends Goldman shares up nearly 1% in morning trading, compared to a flat performance for bank stocks like JPMorgan Chase. Solomon is becoming sole president and COO of the firm with the disclosed April departure of his co-No. 2 at the firm, Harvey Schwartz. The two have been locked in an internal competition for the top spot at Goldman for more than a year. (Aaron.Lucchetti@wsj.com) Market Talk is a stream of real-time news and market analysis available on Dow Jones Newswires. To learn more about Market Talk and Dow Dow Jones Newswires, please visit https://www.dowjones.com/products/newswires/. 
 
 He graduated from high school in New Jersey and didn’t bother applying to college, instead joining a local gym as an athletic trainer. He eventually attended Rutgers University, working as nightclub bouncer and other odd jobs to pay his way, and joined Citigroup Inc. as an operations temp in 1989. 
 
 He came to Goldman’s commodities trading arm in 1997 as a derivatives salesman, helping energy and mining companies protect themselves from price swings. 
 
 By 2008, Mr. Schwartz was running the trading division. As the financial crisis unfolded, he kept the firm on the offensive while competitors pulled back. The gambit worked: Goldman’s traders made $33 billion in 2009, the most profitable year on record for a Wall Street broker-dealer. 
 
 Mr. Schwartz was named CFO four years later, a move so unexpected that senior executives ​including the firm’s heads of risk and accounting threatened to quit, according to a person familiar with the matter. 
 
 But Mr. Schwartz won over critics by overseeing an operation that avoided surprises that plagued other banks. His 18-quarter tenure as CFO is captured in pen on a pair of lime-green boxing gloves that he keeps in his office, a gift from Goldman’s finance team: “18-0, all by KO.” 
 
 As co-president, he helped shepherd the firm’s consumer-lending initiative, Marcus, to its 2016 launch. He served as Goldman’s point man on client accounts including Tesla Inc. and SoftBank Group Corp. , and organized a new $5 billion investment joint venture with China Investment Corp. that was announced in November, according to people familiar with the matter. 
 
 “It’s been an incredible 21 years,” he said in his final management committee meeting Monday, according to attendees. “I’ve gotten more out of the firm than I put in. It’s been an honor.” 
 
 Write to Liz Hoffman at liz.hoffman@wsj.com 

 Goldman Sachs has chosen David Solomon — a “tough as nails” investment banker who moonlights as a DJ — as the heir apparent to its longtime CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. 
 
 Solomon’s elevation came as his rival for the top job, Harvey Schwartz, surprised colleagues with an early Monday announcement at Goldman’s Manhattan headquarters that he will resign next month from the No. 2 post he had shared with Solomon. 
 
 The choice of Solomon, who’s been with the firm since 1999, signals a distinct shift at the 149-year-old Wall Street powerhouse toward Solomon’s strengths, which are in lending and investment banking — and away from the flagging bond trading business that has weighed down the company’s earnings for years. 
 
 “If you think about what Goldman is very best at in the world, it’s investment banking,” Dick Bove, an analyst and critic of the bank’s senior management. “If you think about Solomon, he’s one of the best in the business.” 
 
 When he’s not busy banking, Solomon spins electronic music at nightclubs in New York, Miami and the Bahamas as “DJ D-Sol” — ditching his pricey suits for a T-shirt and a baseball cap as he presides over sweaty dance pits into the wee hours. 
 
 Among Solomon’s signature mixes are a beat-heavy rendition of “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac, according to his Instagram feed. 
 
 Solomon, 56, started his banking career at Drexel Burnham and Bear Stearns before joining Goldman as a partner in 1999 — a rare promotion for a company outsider. 
 
 For 10 years through 2016, he was the head of investment banking at Goldman, and credited for a 70-percent rise in the unit’s profits during that period. 
 
 “He’s tough as nails, he’s extremely effective, and he gets things done,” Bove said. “So he’s a typical Goldman guy. That’s good.” 
 
 The banking bake-off between Solomon and Schwartz started last year when Gary Cohn, who’d been Blankfein’s number two, resigned to take a job as the top economic adviser to the Trump White House. 
 
 In December 2016, the bank promoted both execs to president and co-chief operating officer, a typical move at the highest levels of Goldman that promotes a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. 
 
 The competition inside the bank was fierce, insiders said. Up until recently, Schwartz had been trying to cultivate power, making promises to subordinates and planning a reorganization, one person close to the bank had told the Post. 
 
 In February, after more than a year of monitoring both of their work, a source said the board accepted a recommendation from Blankfein that Solomon would be the company’s sole president and COO — effectively putting out Schwartz out to pasture. 
 
 Neither Schwartz nor Solomon had been informed of the decision until Wednesday, two days before news leaked out that Blankfein was likely to retire before the end of the year, a source told The Post. 
 
 At an 8:15 AM meeting at the company’s Manhattan headquarters, Schwartz announced that he would be retiring April 20. 
 
 “Over the course of two decades, Harvey has consistently demonstrated his deep commitment to the firm and its values,” Blankfein wrote in an internal memo obtained by The Post. “His work ethic, command of complexity and client focus have defined his career. He has been a mentor to many and his influence has made an indelible impact on generations of professionals at Goldman Sachs.” 
 
 There is still “no specific timeline” as to when Solomon would take the reins of the bank, the person said. 
 
 Goldman reps didn’t have any immediate follow-up comment.
– One of Goldman Sachs' co-presidents, a part-time DJ, is set for promotion, while the other, a karate black belt, is packing his bags. Harvey Schwartz, appointed co-president when Gary Cohn left for the White House in December 2016, will leave the firm after its board of directors chose fellow co-president David Solomon to succeed current CEO Lloyd Blankfein, reports the Wall Street Journal. Chief financial officer from 2013 to 2016, Schwartz, 54, was initially thought to have a leg up on Solomon as he's better known throughout the firm. But Blankfein told the board he preferred Solomon, who oversaw the firm's investment bankers beginning in 2006, doubling the unit's profit margin over a decade, and has pushed for the hiring of more women, per the New York Times. Blankfein has held the top job since 2006. With Schwartz's retirement on April 20, the 56-year-old Solomon will be named the sole president of Goldman Sachs. He'll become "perhaps the banking industry's most prominent spokesman" when Blankfein opts to retire, possibly as early as this year, the Times reports. That might mean a little less time for Solomon's musical pursuits. The investment banker also works part-time as a DJ under the name D-Sol, who boasted of having his electronic rendition of "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac featured on Sirius XM radio earlier this year, per the New York Post. Schwartz, meanwhile, might find more time for karate as he charts his next move. "It's been an incredible 21 years. I've gotten more out of the firm than I put in," he said at a Monday meeting, per the Journal. "It's been an honor."