Robert King Steel (born August 3, 1951) is an American businessman, financier and government official who has served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance of the United States Treasury, chief executive officer of Wachovia Corporation and vice chairman of Goldman Sachs.

[1] The second of three boys, Steel grew up in Durham, North Carolina, attending public schools near Duke University, his future college.

At the time, Europe was privatizing major state-owned enterprises, like telecom, utility and energy interests, to transition to more market-driven economies.

In 1994, he relocated to New York and served as co-head of the Goldman Sachs Equities Division from 1996 to 2002 until his appointment as a vice chair of the firm.

[5] In 2005 he helped settle a conflict between Barclays' commercial and investment divisions over who would serve a newly purchased South African bank.

In January 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating claims Steel made about the future of the bank before it started talks about a potential merger.

Following the merger, Steel was invited to join the board of Wells Fargo and served on the firm's credit and finance committees.

[16] In 2010, upon being appointed Deputy Mayor for Economic Development of New York City, Steel resigned his seat on the Wells Fargo board.

Founded in 2006, the firm has since grown to more than 400 employees, and has worked on transactions like NYSE Euronext’s sale to IntercontinentalExchange and J. Crew’s leveraged buyout by TPG.

Steel’s term also saw the advancement of a range of large-scale development projects in all five boroughs, including the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into the world’s largest ice center; the proposed development of the Staten Island Wheel on Staten Island; the redevelopment of Willets Point and Hallets Point in Queens; the expansion of the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District; and the completion of the long-stalled Seward Park Urban Renewal Area on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Steel also led Mayor Bloomberg’s comprehensive redevelopment of the City’s 520 miles of waterfront as well as the City’s major development projects on the east side of the East River in Brooklyn (including the redevelopment of the Domino Sugar Factory, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Watchtower complex, Greenpoint, Hunters Point South and Hallets Point in Queens), the Far West Side of Manhattan and Lower Manhattan at the World Trade Center site, where he mediated negotiations to restart construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in 2012.

Steel was appointed Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the United States Department of the Treasury on October 10, 2006 and served until July 9, 2008.

[20] Steel also oversaw the creation of the Blueprint on Financial Services Regulation as part of an initiative to increase America's capital market competitiveness.

It collaborates with wealthy individuals and family foundations and pools together their funds to provide significant unrestricted, multi-year support for these organizations.

[27] In 2006, Steel was named chairman of the board of the Aspen Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes values-based leadership and provides neutral venues for discussing and acting on critical issues.

He became vice chairman in 2000, and on July 1, 2005, he succeeded Peter M. Nicholas as the first Durham native to chair the board since its founding as a university in 1924.

[40] In 2010, Steel became a founding member of the advisory board of the American Action Network, a group devoted to developing and marketing conservative ideas.

In May 2009 he shared a panel with Felix Rohatyn and Daniel Gross, Senior Editor of Newsweek, on "Bringing the Economy Back to Life."

[43] He is also a member of The FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion (ComE-IN), which focuses on how to improve underserved and low- and moderate-income consumers' access to the financial mainstream.

[44] Although Steel was appointed to his Treasury post by a Republican president, he does not regard himself as an ideologue, and has been occasionally criticized for his political independence.

[45] In 2013, Steel was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.