Where one lands in life is part planned and part luck. That at least is the view of Fernando Rivera – and it is a view backed up by his journey from growing up in Honduras to developing a talent for mathematics while studying in New Orleans, which took him to Wall Street where he is now one of the top bankers covering Latin America for Goldman Sachs.
Rivera's journey also set a path that his three younger brothers followed, from Honduras to Wall Street via Loyola University in Louisiana. One brother is also a partner at Goldman, another is at Citigroup and the youngest is at Morgan Stanley.
Significantly, it has been pioneering work on major Latin American infrastructure that has helped elevate Rivera to his current position as head of Goldman's FICC Americas structuring and solutions group in global banking and markets, and co-head of Latin America structured trading.
He was promoted to partner in the latest two-yearly cohort in November 2022 following his work helping to finance Autopista Rio Magdalena 2, a Colombian toll road. The road will be 153km long and is intended to improve the connection between the south-west, central Colombia and the Caribbean coast to the country's main ports.
The work built on landmark transactions Rivera was involved in to finance other infrastructure and toll roads in Colombia. When the country was putting together the framework for the fourth generation of public-private partnerships, Goldman was the first bank – local or foreign – to finance one.
Goldman financed three of the first four projects under a PPP framework, and there have now been about 30, Rivera said. “We were pioneers that helped set how people looked at project finance in the country,” he told IFR.
The transaction included a number of other landmarks: it was the first to include a project-level letter of credit facility in Colombia; the first local currency project bond in the country; and the first time a Colombian PPP project had been rated.
Part luck
Rivera, 42, grew up in Honduras and travelled to the US at 18 to attend Loyola. The eldest of four brothers, he took the most practical choice for his higher education, which also proved opportune. Loyola offered him a full scholarship, and while there he worked closely with a professor who encouraged him towards a career in finance in New York.
When Rivera first interned in banking it was on the cash equity trading desk at JP Morgan.
“It was fast-paced and exhilarating – I loved it,” Rivera said. When JP Morgan invited him back the following year he wanted to go back on the cash equity desk, but the bank challenged him to try something different. He tried fixed income sales and loved that too. And part of the team he worked on was branching off to do derivatives and derivatives structuring.
“Interesting,” Rivera thought. And it has been the path of his career since.
“I always loved math and derivatives fit very well,” he said. “It was the perfect middle ground between being able to dive deeply into something technical, doing something thoughtful and still having a client interface.”
He joined Goldman in 2006 and was promoted to managing director in 2012, and has covered all areas of FICC structuring, ranging from derivatives and structured notes to infrastructure, sovereign, oil and power and project finance deals.
All in the family
If he had not gone into finance, Rivera said he probably would have become a chemical engineer. His parents were engineers and worked in the sugar industry. But the path of his siblings suggests that even if he had studied chemistry Rivera would still have become a banker – perhaps covering industrials M&A.
His three younger brothers all showed the same knack for finance at Loyola. From there, Osmin Rivera also joined JP Morgan before moving to Goldman, where he was made partner in 2020. He is head of Americas currencies and emerging markets trading. “We actually work in the same business in emerging markets,” Fernando Rivera said.
Another brother, Ricardo, is at Morgan Stanley in its securitised products group, after previously working as a summer analyst and associate at Goldman. Jorge Rivera works for Citigroup in fixed income sales.
All four work in New York, and three live in downtown Manhattan and one just over the bridge in Brooklyn.
“We are very close,” Fernando Rivera said. But when they are together they try not to talk shop.
Rivera said his decision to jump to Goldman from JP Morgan was based on an opportunity to help build something from the ground up.
“JP Morgan was already a very established presence in emerging markets. Goldman was trying to start this business, which appealed to my entrepreneurial side,” he said.
Within a month of joining Goldman, the bank opened up operations in Brazil, and over the years expanded its Mexico presence to include a broker-dealer, grew in Chile, opened in Peru, and reopened operations in Argentina.
"We have established real roots in the region, we have grown our presence in the banking and markets business, as well as in the asset and wealth management business. We have been consistently investing over the past two decades and we continue to grow our footprint in the region,” Rivera said.
Goldman understands emerging markets better than ever and is committed to it at senior levels, Rivera said. “These areas are prone to risk and we are very mindful of how we manage it,” he said.
The financial crises of 2007–08 occurred near the beginning of Rivera’s career at Goldman, and as a result risk management has left a mark on him.
“One critical lesson learned is that tails are fatter than you think and risk can play out differently than you can imagine,” he said, noting how distinct markets can behave differently.
“The biggest lesson from the crisis and even from some of the regional banking turmoil we saw in March and April is that this is a business of confidence,” Rivera said. “First and foremost for banks is managing that risk and the perception of stability risk.”
Another challenge in structuring is constantly reinventing the business every couple of years, as markets and regulations change, requiring new innovation for insurance and hedge funds.
“If you are doing a structuring job well, things that were once complex become plain vanilla and so you have to continue to innovate,” he said. “It’s ultimately the biggest intellectual challenge.”
In the process of building his career, Rivera has served not only as a role model for his brothers, but for young Goldman bankers, especially those from Hispanic and Latinx backgrounds.
He is chief operating officer of Goldman’s Hispanic/Latinx network. The group pairs full-time employees with incoming summer analysts to create connections to help young people navigate the firm, and has senior bankers mentor junior colleagues on issues such as networking opportunities. “It makes their view of what they can achieve more tangible,” Rivera said.
