Ralph Alswang · CC BY 4.0

Spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs before serving as U.S. Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, where he helped drive the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act and the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, moves credited with the era's economic prosperity. He later co-founded the Hamilton Project, a policy institute focused on economic growth. Critics have since argued that the deregulatory, bank-friendly approach he championed helped set the stage for the 2008 financial crisis — a charge he has publicly disputed.