Title: Vice President on the Municipal Syndicate Desk
Firm: Goldman Sachs
Age: 35
Sam Denton-Schneider, vice president on the Municipal Syndicate Desk at Goldman Sachs, had long been interested in public policy but wasn't exactly sure how to parlay that into a career that suited his interests.
Before finishing his bachelor's degree in economics from Williams College, he interned for Marin County, California, Supervisor Susan Adams for a summer to learn more about the industry. When he
graduated in 2009, financial markets were in the news. and this further piqued his interest.
"In college, I started reading articles about finance and started to get more interested in the dynamism of markets," Sam said. "I saw public finance as a good intersection of markets and public policy and I've been doing it ever since," he added. "It always really interested me."
After graduation, he began his career at Goldman Sachs as a summer analyst, leading to his eventual promotion to analyst, associate, and vice president, where he's been for the last seven years.
But before making his way to New York and the municipal syndicate desk, Sam worked in his native California as a public finance banker, helping to execute over $12 billion in debt financings, asset sales, purchases and project financings for West Coast municipal governments.
"I think the best part about this job is it dovetails exactly to my interests," he said. "Markets are incredibly dynamic and you have to synthesize a lot of disparate details to come up with a cohesive picture explaining how things work," he added. "You also get to work with state and local governments, which has always kind of been my interest, so tying those two things together on a daily basis is what keeps me going."
He has served as senior underwriter on over $22 billion of long-term, senior managed, fixed rate financings for a wide range of state and local infrastructure issuers including MTA, California Earthquake Authority, and the state of Maine, among many others.
