Former Trump Adviser Dina Powell Is Returning to Goldman Sachs

(Bloomberg) -- Dina Powell, a former deputy national security adviser to President Donald Trump, is returning to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and will be a member of the investment bank’s management committee.

Powell, 44, was a partner and the firm’s global head of impact investing until being tapped for a White House post at the start of the Trump administration. She’ll focus on boosting relationships with sovereign clients, according to a memo sent to staff Tuesday.

During her earlier stint at Goldman, which began in 2007, Powell ran the bank’s “10,000 Women” initiative, focused on helping female entrepreneurs. Before that, she was an assistant secretary of state and a senior White House staffer during the administration of George W. Bush.

Powell left on good terms with Trump and other White House personnel, and aides said she would continue to provide advice on Middle East policy, Bloomberg reported in December. Earlier this month, she was named a non-resident fellow for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Returning Home

Powell’s last day at the White House was Jan. 12. Officials said at the time her departure was announced that she was leaving to spend more time with her family, who had remained behind in Manhattan.

While in Washington, she was criticized at times by the nationalist faction in Trump’s base of support, including then-chief strategist Steve Bannon, a fellow Goldman alum who left the White House last year to return briefly to the right-wing Breitbart website. She was closer with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who’s leading efforts to broker a deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kushner said when Powell’s departure was announced that she would “continue to play a key role in our peace efforts.”

Powell was involved in the Trump administration’s first National Security Strategy, released in December. She also helped orchestrate the president’s foreign trips and was frequently the only woman in U.S. delegations at high-profile meetings with foreign leaders.

Egyptian-born Powell, who immigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child, helped arrange meetings for Vice President Mike Pence in Egypt in late January and traveled with Pence on his surprise trip to Afghanistan in December.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dakin Campbell in New York at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net, Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Steven Crabill

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