Technology giant IBM has named Gary Cohn, the former economic adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump and ex-Goldman Sachs Group  as its Vice chairman . He will be part of IBM's executive leadership team and will work in the areas of business development, client services, public advocacy and client relationship management, IBM said in a statement.

Cohn served as Trump’s top economic adviser between January 2017 and April 2018 and before that was president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs for a decade.

He spent 26 years with the bank and had last month said he will make a charitable donation instead of giving back compensation to Goldman Sachs as penance for the Wall Street bank’s involvement in Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign fund corruption scandal.

The bank was investigated for its involvement in raising $6.5 billion through three bond sales between 2012 and 2013 for the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

Goldman in October reached a deal to settle the probe, agreeing to pay total penalties of $2.9 billion and said it was clawing back $174 million in executive compensation.

Cohn last year raised $720 million in an initial public offering for a new blank-check acquisition company and has investments across the cybersecurity, blockchain infrastructure, regulatory technology and medical technology sectors.

He  will not be full time or have a formal management role. Instead, IBM said he would work “in partnership” with its leadership group “on a wide range of business initiatives and external engagements, including “business development, client services, public advocacy and client relationship management.”

Founded in 1911, IBM made its name building computers and later providing technology services to other companies. But it was slow to adapt as corporations in recent years shifted from storing data on big servers they owned to using the cloud. Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. embraced the cloud and turned it into a huge business that helped propel their growth to valuations of more than $1 trillion, or 10 times IBM’s market valuation.

Source- Reuters

Country- U.S