Yale School of Management - Alumni Leaders

"I owe my professional success to what I learned at Yale SOM. Yale taught one half of my brain finance and accounting and gave the other half powerful insights which have helped me understand groups (and client behavior)."

Richard Kauffman has recently become the new chief executive officer of Good Energies and chief operating officer of Cofra Holdings AG. He was previously a partner of Goldman Sachs where he was chairman of the Global Financing Group, a member of the firm’s Partnership Committee, Commitments Committee, and Investment Banking Division Operating Committee. During his long career, Mr. Kauffman has had broad experience in capital markets and corporate finance. Before joining Goldman Sachs, he was vice chairman of Morgan Stanley’s Institutional Securities Business and co-head of its Banking Department. Prior to assuming this position, Mr. Kauffman was vice chairman and a member of the European Executive Committee of Morgan Stanley International.

Mr. Kauffman has been a lecturer in finance and financial accounting at the Yale School of Management and a teaching fellow in foreign policy at Yale College. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University, a master’s degree in international relations from Yale University, as well as a master’s in public and private management from the Yale School of Management. He is on the board of The New School, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the New York Philharmonic, the Foreign Policy Association, and the French-American Foundation, and has served on the Yale School of Management Board of Advisors. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.