Goldman Sachs' new Chief Executive Officer David Solomon is breaking from his predecessor Lloyd Blankfein in at least one important way: He prefers Instagram over Twitter.
"Lloyd was definitely a Twitter CEO," Solomon said Tuesday at an event held by Fortune. "Lloyd was not on Instagram. I am going to use Instagram as a platform. I think it's a great platform for me to communicate with our employees, broadly, across the firm and with our clients around the world."
Days before Solomon, 56, took over as CEO on Oct. 1, Goldman Sachs launched an Instagram account for the investment bank. The New York-based company – which was on other social media platforms but not Facebook-owned Instagram – posts photos flaunting employees, research reports and environmental efforts. Solomon, who has posted on Instagram under his DJ alias, added a business account yesterday under his name with the following description: "Dad. DJ. Day job @goldmansachs."
"At the moment, I have 171 followers," Solomon said. "I only have approximately 459,800 to go before I catch up with Jeff Bezos."
'Cower in the corner'
Solomon's music hobby, first reported last year when he was a co-president competing for the top job, has helped inform his attitude towards social media, he said. Previously, employees who ran into Solomon in the bank's elevators used to "cower in the corner" when meeting him, the executive said. Now junior bankers strike up conversations with him, he said.
"Employees want to know what's going on with the people that are leading the organization, they want to be connected to them," Solomon said. "And not just in a business sense. So these platforms are really an excellent way to communicate, stay in touch, and just be a little bit vulnerable to both your clients and your people. I think that's hugely important for leaders today."
Finance executives often lean on old-school means of communications like corporate emails and town-hall meetings.
While Blankfein often garnered attention for his tweets, he said yesterday that he limited himself to topics like marriage equality and immigration because those issues impacted employees. Now that he's stepped down as CEO, Blankfein said he can embrace "unrestrained tweeting."
