Henry M Paulson Jr

Henry M. Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946), commonly known as Hank Paulson, is a prominent American financier, statesman, conservationist, and bestselling author who served as the 74th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Raised on a farm in Barrington, Illinois, he excelled academically and athletically at Dartmouth College before earning his MBA from Harvard Business School. After a brief early stint in public service on the White House Domestic Council under President Richard Nixon, Paulson embarked on a stellar 32-year career at Goldman Sachs, rising to become its chairman and CEO in 1999. In July 2006, he was appointed Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush, a pivotal tenure that saw him lead the United States' aggressive economic response to the historic 2008 global financial crisis. He detailed those high-stakes economic bailouts in his hit 2010 memoir, On the Brink. Leveraging more than one hundred professional trips to Beijing, he vaulted back into the literary spotlight with his 2015 masterpiece, Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower. Drawing on rare, closed-door access to top Chinese political and business elites—including President Xi Jinping—the book offers a definitive, anecdote-rich masterclass on how Western leaders can navigate trade, handle state-controlled capitalism, and structurally engage with the rising economic superpower. Today, Paulson remains a top global voice on macroeconomics and climate change, serving as the founder and chairman of the Paulson Institute and executive chairman of TPG Rise Climate.