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Trading Up — Kenneth D. Brody (MBA 1971)
On a summer evening in 1991, after a small, invitation-only dinner in New York City, Ken Brody took aside the guest of honor for a private conversation. The longer the two men talked, the more Brody sensed he had found a kindred spirit. Like Brody -- a milkman's son who had become an investment banker -- the guest had also risen from humble origins and was now in the midst of an ambitious, if cash-strapped, bid to go even farther.
Soon after that meeting, Brody stepped down from his position as a partner and member of the management committee at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and signed on as a principal fundraiser for his new friend, a Democratic-primaries long shot named Bill Clinton. At the time, President Bush enjoyed a 90 percent approval rating. But the rest, as they say, is history.
With Clinton's election, Brody, at one time a self-described "babe in the woods," was now not only a dealmaker but something of a kingmaker as well. "When I graduated from college with an engineering degree, I knew nothing about politics and less about investment banking," the tall, trim Brody recalls with a chuckle. "My best friend, an HBS graduate, urged me to enroll at the School to learn about life's possibilities. For me, HBS was a turning point."
After graduating, Brody went directly to Goldman and began an outstanding twenty-year career there. Over the years, he founded and headed Goldman's high-technology investment banking group, led the firm's real-estate investment banking group, and coheaded its long-term principal investing activities.
Brody signed on as a principal fundraiser for his new friend, a Democratic-primaries long shot named Bill Clinton.
With Clinton in the White House, however, public service soon called. In 1993, the President appointed Brody to be chairman and president of the government's trade financing agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States. He served until early 1996, stepping down to near-unanimous acclaim for making the organization more customer responsive and attuned to the needs of smaller businesses, as well as for shifting the bank's focus away from dealings with foreign governments and toward more private transactions.
In 1996, President Clinton again called on Brody, this time to chair the newly formed Presidential Commission on United StatesPacific Trade and Investment Policy. "If successful," Brody explains, "our commission will set a new direction for trade and investment policy with the Pacific Rim countries. Opening the doors to the biggest and fastest-growing markets in the world will help U.S. companies and produce good jobs for American workers."
Brody, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, has decided that the city is an ideal place to raise a family and base his new business ventures. He has launched a third career as an entrepreneurial private investor. Early this year, Brody formed Winslow Partners L.L.C., whose purpose is to make private equity investments in the United States and the Czech Republic.
In his spare time, Brody serves on the boards of the American Red Cross, St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, the Washington Tennis Foundation, and the University of Maryland Foundation. "I'm working hard on becoming a ranked senior tennis player to make up for my nonathletic youth," Brody says. "I also enjoy coaching my eight-year-old son's soccer team on weekends."
Brody, who has always relished a challenge, is embarking on his new career with his usual enthusiasm. Only time will tell if he can repeat his past successes. But he declares, "I'll have a lot of fun trying."
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