Peter Orszag: Appreciate the question. I would say, look, what we are trying to do here as we pursue these Lazar 2030 goals is pursue growth in an ambitious and aggressive way, but also in a way that is high return and high productivity and to act decisively when it’s clear that something is shareholder enhancing. So that’s really what we hope we’re starting to demonstrate, but it’s obviously early days, and we plan to continue to demonstrate that. With regard to internal culture, I’ve really emphasized the combination of being commercial and collegial. Both parts of that are super important to the pathway forward. And that means being aggressive on behalf of our clients and ambitious on behalf of our clients, but it also means acting like a team and treating one another with respect. And I think that’s what I would hope the legacy will be.
Operator: And our next questions will come from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Brennan Hawken: I was just so excited to get my follow-up questions in. Here we go. So the — how should we think about MD — Advisory MD headcount by year-end? You have announced plans to make some reductions. But so far versus year-end, year-end was, I believe, the numbers we have out of the filings, 212 at year-end last year. And now in the Q — for 2Q it was 227. So maybe where do we stand on advisory MDs now? Where do you expect by year-end? And then what — how should we be thinking about the trajectory of that MD count given your plans for productivity enhancement?
Peter Orszag: Sure. First, let me say, we are — before I turn to MDs, we are on target to hit our goal of reducing headcount by 10% measured from the first quarter of 2020 the to the first quarter of 2020. Overall, that’s not specific to MD. Second, before I get — actually answer your question, just a little bit of framing, which is, again, really focused on in the year-end process, having high bars on being commercial and collegial or higher bars so that following the pandemic went for natural reasons. There might have been a bit more of a generous policy with regard to remaining at Lazard. We are very focused on raising productivity and making sure that people are collaborative moving forward. Then with regard to your specific question, you’ll see in the Q, for this quarter, a number of 15, that will come down already with regard — that includes some people who will be departing, but they are still counted in the Q.
And by year-end, it will be down from that, again, consistent with our overall goal of a 10% headcount adjustment.
Brennan Hawken: And then you — part of your plans, Peter, include internal development and so — and enhancing productivity, right? So what I’d be curious about, have you gone through the exercise of breaking down that MD count, right, a little over 200 by like strata. In other words, x percent produce, $8 plus million or $10-plus million, right, whereas — and then there’s the middle strata and then there’s a lower strata. And so I guess the 10% reduction is going to be very heavily focused on that lower strata. And then also, have you looked at of the promotes how many are able to get into that top tier. And what can you learn about their journey in order to ensure the promotions are as effective as possible?
Peter Orszag: Excellent question. So a few comments. Again, just a reminder about the 40% that are not — that are still ramping, which is an extra roughly 20 managing directors with embedded productivity kind of ahead. You won’t be surprised to know that we do exhaustive analysis of productivity at the individual level by quintile, by quartile, et cetera. I don’t think it’s appropriate to share those numbers here. But like in any organization, you’re going to have a skew to that distribution. And we are, therefore, really focused on giving people some time to become productive. And everyone can have — everyone from time to time will have an off year. If over a prolonged period of time, a matter of several years, either the collegiality or the productivity is not there, we’re going to part company with the managing directors.
