Robert Rubin

Robert Edward Rubin (born 1938) is an American investment banker and government official who served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury from January 1995 to July 1999 under President Bill Clinton. Prior to entering government service, Rubin practiced law briefly after graduating from Yale Law School before joining Goldman Sachs in 1966, where he spent 26 years and rose to the positions of vice chairman and co-chief operating officer from 1987 to 1990, followed by co-senior partner and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992. In the Clinton administration, he initially served as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and the first Director of the National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995. As Treasury Secretary, Rubin advocated fiscal discipline and open trade policies that helped shift the federal budget from deficit to surplus, achieve the lowest unemployment rates in decades, and sustain the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history up to that point, while also coordinating responses to financial crises in Mexico, Asia, and Russia alongside the IMF and Federal Reserve. After leaving office, Rubin joined Citigroup as a senior counselor and board member from 1999 to 2009, earning over $126 million in compensation during a time when the bank's aggressive expansion into subprime lending and derivatives contributed to massive losses and its receipt of a $45 billion government bailout amid the 2008 financial crisis, drawing criticism for his advisory influence despite claims of a non-operational role.