Gary Cohn’s Departure From White House Has Wall St. Worried<br />“Gary brought a strong growth orientation for the economy<br />and a very balanced perspective, particularly on critical topics like trade,” said Rich Lesser, chief executive of the Boston Consulting Group, who served on one of Mr. Trump’s business advisory panels last year and attended policy meetings with Mr. Cohn.<br />“He was somebody that the New York business community<br />and financial industry in particular relied on as someone in the White House who understood business and the financial industry and would push for doing what was right, not what was politically correct,” she said.<br />“They are losing an oasis of clear thought.”<br />A former silver trader who sweet-talked his way into his first job at the New York Commodity Exchange<br />and was later the second-highest-ranking executive at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Cohn understood the nuances of free markets and complex organizations, but was not locked into a specific worldview.<br />But Mr. Cohn, who said on Tuesday that he would resign as director of the National Economic Council, brought to the Trump administration something<br />that the president himself lacked: the widespread respect of top corporate executives.<br />“I think he was very stabilizing influence within the Trump administration.”<br />Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a business group, said<br />that she viewed Mr. Cohn as a “real resource” in Washington.
