Meet the 2 men in position to replace Lloyd Blankfein at the top of Goldman Sachs

Schwartz was CFO when he was named president and co-COO alongside Solomon.

He joined the trading shop J. Aron — the same firm Blankfein joined 15 years earlier — as it was merging with Goldman Sachs.

When he joined, Blankfein was managing J. Aron, which merged into Goldman's fixed income, currencies, and commodities unit. Gary Cohn, who recently left his role as President Trump's chief economic adviser, was global head of commodities at the time, so Schwartz reported to him and Blankfein.

Schwartz made partner at Goldman Sachs in 2002 and became cohead of the Americas Financing Group within the investment-banking division. He was later appointed to global head of the securities division before becoming CFO.

In a recent podcast, Schwartz described his childhood as "pretty difficult," saying he almost didn't make it to college. After he graduated from high school he worked at a gym as a physical trainer. And he only ended up applying to college because one of his clients, Linda, pushed him to do so.

Portia Crowe contributed to an earlier version of this article.