Ashok Varadhan (born [1]) is the head of the securities division at Goldman Sachs.[2] He has been co-head of the division since 2014.
He became a partner at Goldman Sachs at age 29 – one of the youngest ever – after joining the firm as an associate only four years earlier. He briefly worked at Merrill Lynch after graduating from Duke University with a major in mathematics and economics.[3] In the 2000s, his derivatives-trading desk earned billions of dollars for the firm. In 2015 he was transferred from New York to the London office (a typical move for Goldman Sachs executives slated for senior leadership). He was briefly sole head of the securities division in 2018, during a leadership reshuffle.[4] He is considered a protégé of former CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
He has lived in New York City for most of his life. He is the son of mathematician S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan,[5] and has three children.[6]