Former Goldman Sachs partner Thomas Healey is trying to make the grade in another cutthroat business , academia. The 58-year-old, who worked in real estate banking and later ran institutional marketing at Goldman, is teaching a course on financial institutions and markets to graduate students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Though Healey continues to work part-time at Goldman, he emphasizes that his Monday afternoon class is no Ivy League boondoggle. “I’m relieved when I have myself ready for the next two hours,” he says. The former banker has put his Goldman connections to good use: Market prognosticator Abby Joseph Cohen recently gave students a video lecture on stocks. Healey got the Cambridge gig through Washington, not Wall Street, ties. He and Kennedy faculty member Roger Porter both worked for the Reagan administration , Healey as assistant Treasury secretary for debt finance and Porter as director of policy development. The Kennedy School attracts its share of celebrities: Now Healey’s rubbing elbows with the likes of television anchorman Tom Brokaw, who delivered a lecture titled “Lessons From the Last Election.” Will Healey be awarded the academic version of partnership? That will depend in part on the grades his students give him.
