Gary Cohn (businessman) - Personality and Work Style

Personality and Work Style

Critics of Cohn attribute to him an arrogant, aggressive, abrasive and risk-prone work style. They see his "6-foot 3-inch & 220 lbs" as intimidating, as he might "sometimes hike up one leg, plant his foot on a trader's desk, his thigh close to the employee's face and ask how markets were doing" According to former Bear Stearns Asset Management CEO Richard Marin, Cohn's arrogance is at the root of the problem.

When you become arrogant, in a trading sense, you begin to think that everybody's a counterparty, not a customer, not a client.

Cohn's supporters see these qualities as advantages. Michael Ovitz, co-founder and former chairman of Creative Artists Agency and former president of The Walt Disney Company, stated that he is impressed of Cohn. Ovitz said:

He’s a trader. He has that whole feel in his body and brain and fingertips.”

Ovitz sees Cohn's toughness as a "positive” value, explaining that a high ranking executive can’t be “all peaches and cream.”

Donna Redel, who was Chairman of the Board of the New York Mercantile Exchange when Cohn worked there as a silver trader, remembers Cohn as “firm,” “strategic” and “driven.” Martin Greenberg, her predecessor, said Cohn "was tough,” and added that “Gary got in with the right people, worked his ass off and used his head.”