Robert J. Katz
ROBERT J. KATZ (AB '69 Cornell; JD '72 Harvard University) is senior director of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., headquartered in New York City. He joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. as a partner in 1988 and became a member of its management committee in 1992, while serving as the firm's general counsel from 1988 through 2000. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he was a partner (1980-88) and an associate (1974-80) at Sullivan & Cromwell, also in New York City. Mr. Katz is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the Federal Bar Council.
Mr. Katz was elected to Cornell's Board of Trustees for a four-year term effective July 1, 2002. He serves on the board's Executive (2005- ), Academic Affairs (2003- ), Alumni Affairs and Development, and Audit Committees, as well as on the Development Steering Committee. He served on the Subcommittee on Tenure and Named Chairs (2004-05) and the Finance Committee from his election until 2003. He is also a member of the Major Gifts Committee, and in October 2005 will become the National Cornell Fund chair.
Among his other Cornell activities, Mr. Katz is a member of the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council; he also served two terms on the Cornell University Council (1981-84, 1996-2000). His giving to Cornell includes a recent gift to renovate and dedicate the new Philip Lewis Lecture Hall in Goldwin Smith Hall and a scholarship established with his sister (Alice K. Berglas '66) in memory of their father: the Seymour M. Katz '31 Arts and Sciences Scholarship. He has also established the Robert J. Katz and Jane Lisman Katz Arts and Sciences Scholarship, and has provided financial support to the government department, the humanities, the Milton Konvitz Professorship in Jewish Studies, Cornell Hillel, and the Seymour M. Katz Memorial Fund, which sponsors the biennial Cornell Club of New York parade and celebration following the Cornell-Columbia football game.
Mr. Katz serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the Horace Mann School. He is a trustee of the Achilles Track Club and of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, as well as a trustee emeritus of the Allen-Stevenson School and a former trustee of Prep for Prep. Mr. Katz also serves on the Harvard Law School Association of New York City and as a member of the Dean's Advisory Board of Harvard Law School.