Cohn's biggest handicap may be the qualities that got him to the No. 2 spot at Goldman Sachs, the colleagues say: an abrasive style, an appetite for risk and a long association with Blankfein, who also started at the company in metals. The two vacationed in the Mexican resort Cabo San Lucas before their 2006 promotions, sent their children to the same school and represent the shift from investment banking to trading, which now produces most of the revenue at the firm.
"Gary and Lloyd embedded the culture of commerciality," said Tanona, referring to a focus on making money. "There was no surprise that Goldman's risk-taking era was under the eye of both Lloyd and Gary."
Ovitz and Daniel Rappaport, a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where Cohn served on the board, both said the Goldman Sachs president could be "abrasive." Ovitz said the toughness "is positive" and that an executive can't be "all peaches and cream."
Cohn, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, can be intimidating, two former colleagues said. He would sometimes hike up one leg, plant his foot on a trader's desk, his thigh close to the employee's face, and ask how markets were doing, they said.
'Questionable Things'
Former Bear Stearns Asset Management CEO Richard Marin said Cohn's arrogance is at "the root of the problem" at Goldman Sachs. "When you become arrogant, in a trading sense, you begin to think that everybody's a counterparty, not a customer, not a client," Marin said. "And as a counterparty, you're allowed to rip their face off."
George Collins, a former CEO of asset manager T. Rowe Price Group Inc., said that while Cohn is qualified to lead the bank, there are other considerations for the bank's board.
"Goldman has a problem right now," he said. "And I'm a client of Goldman. There are some questionable things that they have done in this financial crisis."
Collins served with Cohn on the board of American University in Washington until 2005, when Collins resigned in protest over a multimillion-dollar severance package for the school's president, a deal Cohn helped negotiate.
"If they feel strongly enough you have to make a break, obviously you make the break," he said.