Who will succeed Lloyd Blankfein as Chief Executive of the Goldman Sachs Group?  One intriguing possibility is Michael Sherwood, who was introduced on Monday to Goldman employees as the new chairman of the partnership committee.  

There's nothing like a change in the leadership of Goldman Sachs’s influential partnership committee to fan rumors of succession at the influential Wall Street bank.

As described in the brief company email, Mr. Sherwood - who's based in London - will succeed firm President Gary Cohn as chairman. Michael Sherwood, an influential figure inside Goldman Sachs, is a banker by trade and a vice chairman of the firm.  One reason Mr. Sherwood was selected for this job may be that Goldman wants to attract more foreign partners.  Mr. Sherwood also serves as Co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International.

    Goldman's Partnership Committee.   The committee runs the partnership selection at the firm.  Unlike other Wall Street firms, Goldman retained a partnership system when it became a publicly traded company in 1999.  Besides being the best paid executives at the firm, partners are generally its biggest producers. Partners are selected once every 2 years and are vetted for months leading up to the actual announcement of the new class of partners.  There are about 470 current partners. 

The partnership committee consists of a number of senior execs, and is chaired by a senior officer.  CEO Lloyd Blankfein held this position in previous years.  Chairing the committee is a lot of work and Goldman changes the chairman from time to time, so it doesn’t necessarily mean Mr. Cohn is agitating to leave the firm.  But it's good news for Mr. Sherwood, one of several people in line to succeed Mr. Cohn or Mr. Blankfein in the event of a change of leadership at the top of the firm.

For more details, go to:   [Dealbook, 3/21/11, "Goldman Partnership Memo..."]