Kathleen Brown

Daughter, sister of California governors transfers her sense of public service to municipal finance as chairman of investment banking for the Midwest region at Goldman Sachs. Brown built a public career in California, carrying on the family tradition of both her governor-brother and her governor-father, the late Edmund G. "Pat" Brown. But later she moved into private business, and now she's embracing her role as a Chicago-based flag bearer for Goldman Sachs in the Midwest. Brown is a senior leader on Goldman's Midwest investment banking team. Her specialty, however, is municipal finance, helping cities and states get money to build infrastructure or make other investments. That's the part of the business she handled in California, the leading issuer of municipal debt in the United States. Her husband, the widely respected and now retired former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter, cut his teeth as a newsman in Chicago, first at the Daily News, then at WBBM. at 19, she eloped with her first husband. She left Stanford University when he enrolled at Harvard Law School, eventually returning to graduate in 1969. Two children later, she began her political career, winning a seat on the Los Angeles City Board of Education in 1975. After her first marriage ended, she met Sauter, quickly forming an unlikely couple with the political conservative. The couple moved to New York when Sauter took the top job at CBS Sports. Brown earned a law degree from Fordham University, starting a law practice that continued when they returned to California in the late '80s. Brown easily won her first foray into statewide politics, taking over as California treasurer in 1990 and setting the stage for her run against incumbent Republican Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994. Early polls showed her poised to win. But Wilson surged as he carved out strong positions against affirmative action and the granting of state benefits to illegal immigrants. After a bitter campaign, he won by a wide margin. After the defeat, Brown moved into the private sector. She started a career in banking that landed her at Goldman in 2001. From 1995 to 2000, Ms. Brown was president of Private Bank at Bank of America Corp.