Goldman Sachs’s Spilker, Overseer of $871 Billion, Exits Firm After 20 Yrs

Spilker, 45, will turn over responsibilities at the end of February to Edward Forst, who rejoined the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history in September from Harvard University, according to internal memorandums yesterday from Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn. The departing executive was on the firm’s management committee, whose members got year-end bonuses for 2009 in stock they can’t sell for five years instead of cash.

Spilker’s exit is the latest of a series of changes atop investment management, which accounts for less than 10 percent of the firm’s revenue. Spilker and Tim O’Neill were elevated to help run it in June 2008, when Forst, 49, left to oversee finances at Harvard, his alma mater, after less than a year at the division.