Steven Lawrence Rattner (born July 5, 1952) is a New York investment asset manager who served as lead adviser to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry in 2009. He is currently chairman and chief executive officer of Willett Advisors LLC, the private investment firm that manages billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal and philanthropic assets. He continues to be involved in public policy matters as the economic analyst for MSNBC's Morning Joe, and as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times op-ed page. Before joining the Obama Administration, he was a managing principal of the Quadrangle Group, a private equity investment firm that specialized in the media and communications industries. Prior to co-founding Quadrangle, he was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Lazard Freres & Co., where he rose to deputy chairman and deputy chief executive officer. Rattner began his career as a journalist for The New York Times. Early life and education Rattner was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Selma and George Rattner. His father was the president of a small paint company and is a playwright who has produced several Off-Broadway plays; his mother was an architecture preservationist and vice president of the Victorian Society of America. Rattner was raised in the suburb of Great Neck, where he attended local public schools. He received his A.B. with honors in economics from Brown University in 1974 and was awarded the Harvey Baker Fellowship. While at Brown, he served as editor-in-chief of The Brown Daily Herald in 1973. Journalism career Upon graduating from Brown, Rattner was hired in Washington, D.C., as a news clerk to James Reston, New York Times columnist and former executive editor. After a year, he moved to New York as a reporter to cover business and energy; there he became friends with colleague Paul Goldberger. In 1977, he was transferred back to Washington to cover the energy crisis. At age 27 he became the paper's chief Washington economic correspondent. He became close friends with Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., who was then the Times publisher. He concluded his service to The New York Times with two years in London as its European economic correspondent. Investment banking career At the end of 1982, Rattner left The New York Times and was recruited by Roger Altman to join the investment bank Lehman Brothers