David A. Viniar, the finance and risk-management overseer whosome investors deem more essential to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. thanLloyd C. Blankfein, may not be replaceable. At least not by oneperson.

The longest-serving chief financial officer of any major WallStreet firm may find his multiple roles distributed among two oreven three deputies when he eventually steps down, according to twopeople with knowledge of the firm's internal deliberations. WhileViniar, 55, told an analyst in May that he has no immediate plan toleave, he has held the CFO post since March 1999, has amassed morethan $254 million of Goldman Sachs stock and has endured some ofthe most withering public scrutiny the New York-based company hasever faced.

Investors are more concerned about Viniar's eventual successorthan they are about replacing Blankfein, 56, the chairman and chiefexecutive officer since 2006, said Roger A. Freeman, an analyst atBarclays Capital. Viniar has played a key role in overseeingfunding, risk, technology and relationships with investors throughGoldman Sachs's May 1999 initial public offering and the financialcollapse of 2008.

“David's the brains behind the operation — the institutionalknowledge that guy has is just unmatched,” said Freeman, who has a“neutral” rating on Goldman Sachs shares. “It's difficult toimagine that there are many people that can juggle as many balls ashe does seemingly effortlessly.”

David Wells, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to commenton what might happen to Viniar's role.

Line of Succession
Some executives at thefirm are skeptical that any single successor would be as adept asViniar in handling all those functions, the people said. Viniar,who joined Goldman Sachs's investment-banking department in 1980,was promoted to CFO after serving as deputy chief financial officerunder then-CFO John A. Thain. Before that, Viniar oversaw thefirm's treasury and controllers.

Controller and chief accounting officer Sarah Smith, a Britishcitizen who joined Goldman Sachs in 1996 from KPMG LLP and has beena partner since 2002, is one of the leading candidates to succeedViniar, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke oncondition of anonymity because succession planning is private. Herduties include managing about 1,500 controllers around the worldwho make sure the firm's business complies with financial andregulatory requirements.

Looking for Clues
Another candidate isTreasurer Elizabeth “Liz” Beshel, who joined in 1990 and waspromoted to partner in 2006, the people said. She is Viniar'sclosest deputy and the person trained by him to handle the firm'sfinancing and liquidity needs. Beshel, 42, married Samuel Robinson,a Goldman Sachs managing director who works for Vice Chairman J.Michael Evans, in June 2010.

“I'd definitely be looking to see who they put in front ofinvestors,” said Freeman, who hasn't met either Beshel or Smith.“It would be fair to assume they're on the short list.”

Under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, Smithalready qualifies as one of Goldman Sachs's 12 “executive officers”who are required to file reports with the SEC about any stockpurchases or sales. Beshel's role doesn't require her to makesimilar filings.

Goldman Sachs, the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets, has becomemuch larger and more complicated while Viniar has been financechief. The firm, which went public two months after he became CFO,has more than four times the assets it held at the end of 1998 andhas almost tripled its employees, according to company filings.

New Status
The firm has also had to adaptto its 2008 conversion to a bank holding company, placing it underFederal Reserve supervision, and is facing new regulations imposedby the Dodd-Frank Act and capital requirements set by the BaselCommittee on Banking Supervision.

The CFO role at Goldman Sachs is already broader than at someother companies. The entire administrative side of the firm — knownas operations, technology and finance or by its nickname “TheFederation” — all report to Viniar.

“When you think about both risk management and technologyrolling up to the same person, to me that seems like a strategicadvantage,” Freeman said. “If you split up his role into two orthree people, it would be essential — for it to work the way it hasunder David — that the two or three people that replace him have towork essentially as one person.”

Viniar played a role in Goldman Sachs's decision to reduce thesize of its bets on subprime mortgages and related derivatives inlate 2006. While the move led politicians and regulators to accusethe firm of misleading clients about the risks in mortgage-relatedinvestments, it spared Goldman Sachs from the losses suffered bycompetitors.

Clashing Views
“As always, the clients whobought our long positions or other similar positions had a viewthat they were attractive positions to purchase at the price theywere offered,” Viniar said in his April 27, 2010, testimony beforethe U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Aswith our own views, their views sometimes proved to be correct andsometimes incorrect.”

Documents released by the subcommittee showed that Viniarconvened a meeting with the mortgage department's leaders on Dec.14, 2006, after learning that the group had lost money for 10consecutive days. Viniar instructed the team to cut their positionsin mortgages and derivatives and to “be aggressive distributingthings,” according to e-mails released by the committee.

Bigger Buffers
Viniar has said GoldmanSachs was better at managing risk than competitors because it wasmore disciplined about marking all of their holdings to market. Hehas also been a proponent of requiring financial institutions tohold more cash or other easy-to-sell investments and of making themkeep more capital as a buffer against potential losses inless-liquid assets. He said in February that Goldman Sachs made themistake of owning too many hard-to-sell assets before the financialcrisis.

“It was a good lesson learned,” he told investors at a Februaryconference sponsored by Credit Suisse Group AG. Goldman Sachs'sproblems stemmed from “our investing and buying more illiquidassets than we probably should have.”

A Bronx native, Viniar graduated with an economics degree fromSchenectady, New York-based Union College in 1976 before getting amaster's in business administration from Harvard Business Schoolfour years later. His donations enabled Union College to build the$3.2 million Viniar Athletic Center, according to a 2005 article onthe college's website.

Viniar's Stake
Viniar owned 1,715,282shares before the IPO, a company filing showed, which were worth$120 million after the stock's first day of trading. As of March 7this year, Viniar owned 1,887,329 shares, according to the firm'sproxy. Those are worth $254.8 million based on the July 7 closingprice of $135.01.

Since 1999, Viniar received about $107 million in salary andcash bonuses in addition to stock and options, company filingsshow. He also received more than $30 million in distributions fromGoldman Sachs-managed funds, filings show.

“Mr. Viniar indicated the time for him to consider retiringwould not begin until a sense of calm has been restored in theoperating environment,” Jeffery Harte, an analyst at SandlerO'Neill & Partners, wrote in a note to investors on May 18following a meeting with Viniar. “We sensed that his desire to seeGoldman through ongoing regulatory and market changes was pervasiveon the executive committee.”

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