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Bible-Thumping Senior Banker Quits Lazard

Published: Mar 29, 2011

 Finance       

Following last month's resignation by Lazard International CEO Naguib Kheraj after just two months on the job, today it was announced that Ken Costa, the chairman of Lazard International, has quit, and is "looking for new opportunities but does not yet have a position lined up."

Costa, who joined Lazard from UBS in 2007 (he was hired by Lazard's former CEO Bruce Wasserstein), is also the author of God at Work, a book about how the Christian faith can be lived every hour of every day on the job. Here's an excerpt:

As an investment banker in the City of London, I have read the Financial Times and the Bible almost every day for the last 30 years. People often ask how I reconcile being a banker and a Christian. There is a widespread view that God and business simply don’t mix: the competitive, cut-throat demands of the marketplace are seen as the obvious enemy of Christian compassion and love. But I have found that the God who created and sustains the world is also the God of the workplace. If the Christian faith is not relevant in the workplace, it is not relevant at all.

Costa also often speaks publicly about applying Christianity to the workplace, and a variety of his speeches (many of which endlessly quote both the Old and New Testament and include the opinion that in the bible "the role of the banker, an often maligned figure in contemporary society, is presented positively") can be found in their entirety here.

(DealBook: Costa, Senior Banker, Quits)

(God At Work)

(Related: Philanthropy in the Air on Wall Street)

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