Abby Joseph Cohen

Abby Joseph Cohen is Professor of Business in the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York City. She was previously a longstanding partner and chief U.S. investment strategist at Goldman Sachs. She was also president of the Global Markets Institute at Goldman Sachs, which provides research on the intersection of economics, public policy, and financial markets. Cohen served on the firm’s Partnership Committee, which oversees the development of future leaders. She was also a senior champion for the internal Disability Interest Forum and the firm’s liaison to the National Defense University of the U.S. Department of Defense. She joined Goldman Sachs in 1990, was named partner in 1998, and retired at yearend 2021. She began her career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C.

Cohen is a presidential councillor at Cornell University, where she chairs the steering committee for the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute for Innovation at Cornell Tech and is a life overseer of Weill Cornell Medicine. A member of the board executive committees of the Brookings Institution and the Jewish Theological Seminary, she previously served as board chair. She is a former board chair of the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, which awarded her the Distinguished Service Award. Cohen has been an advisor to the endowment investment committees of several not-for-profit institutions, including Cornell University, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Opera. She previously served as vice chair of the board of the New York Economic Club, and on the national board of the Smithsonian Institution. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was a member of the Obama White House-appointed Innovation Advisory Board for Economic Competitiveness.

Cohen earned degrees in economics from Cornell University and the George Washington University. She has received three honorary doctorates, including one in engineering related to her background in computer science. Cohen is recognized as a thought leader in U.S. portfolio strategy and was previously ranked No. 1 by Institutional Investor and Greenwich Associates. Her name has appeared on lists of the most influential individuals in financial services compiled by Barron’s, Fortune and other publications. Her career is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story, a New York Times feature article, and a profile in The New Yorker, including original cartoon.