Robert Hormats
The Diplomat
People, composure and the difficult conversation held well.
Robert Hormats reads as The Diplomat through a career-long commitment to durable, cross-border trust networks over transactional wins. Spanning Goldman Sachs vice chairman and Under Secretary of State in the Obama administration, his method mirrors the Kissinger strategic connectivity he reveres: the phone call that works in a crisis exists only because the relationship was built decades earlier. He leads through accumulated relational capital, never through positional authority alone.
“The personal relationships I think are very important and often underestimated. The relationships you develop when you're in your twenties and thirties — they build a level of confidence between you and others in Washington and elsewhere.”
“You also build extremely close relations with people at your level in other governments around the world. You can pick up the phone two years later and talk to them about a problem — particularly when you're in a crisis, you want to know who to call.”
“Kissinger was very good at connecting the dots, at developing strategy — not just dealing with issues ad hoc or on a transactional basis, but on a strategic basis.”
Masters in Business: “Robert Hormats on the Art of Business and Diplomacy (Podcast)”
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