(Bloomberg) -- Centerview Partners, the investment bank headed by dealmakers Blair Effron and Robert Pruzan, has hired Richard Haass, the former longtime president of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Haass, a diplomat who has also worked under four US presidents, will be a senior counselor at the bank’s New York office starting Tuesday, according to a statement viewed by Bloomberg News.

The hire is part of a trend of banks evolving to meet the needs of chief executive officers and corporate boards, who no longer just rely on investment bankers for deal advice. Independent banks such as Centerview have branched into other areas of advisory such as geopolitical and environmental, social and governance matters. 

“We look forward to benefiting from Richard’s experience and counsel as we help our clients address the economic and geopolitical risks and opportunities inherent in today’s global markets,” Effron said in a statement. 

“It’s important to be around clients and most of what they do, which is not transactions,” Effron said in an interview. “80% of the time we need to be of value for strategic matters, world matters, everything and not just financial matters. This is a natural extension.”

Lazard Board

While Haass has never worked fulltime in investment banking, until last month he had served on the board of Lazard Ltd. On Monday, Lazard said it hired former UK national security adviser Stephen Lovegrove to bulk up its one-year-old geopolitical advisory practice.

The business world will be affected by renewed geopolitical competition, challenges from climate change, infectious disease, revolutionary technology and deep political divisions in the US that could threaten the country’s ability to meet its domestic needs and international responsibility, according to Haass. 

“International subjects are so high on everyone’s radar screen,” Haass said in an interview. “For many years, many CEOs resisted taking geopolitical factors into account. I don’t meet that resistance any more.”

Haass said he’s known Effron for 15 years and his fellow Centerview co-founder Pruzan for about a decade. 

This isn’t the first time Centerview has brought on experts from other fields including government.

Another senior counselor at Centerview is Bob Rubin, a former US Treasury Secretary who also was a leader at the Council on Foreign Relations, the influential non-profit. Effron is vice chairman of the organization’s board. Haass is the president emeritus of the non-profit after serving as president for 20 years.

Former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel also worked at Centerview and last year Centerview hired former Nature Conservancy CEO Mark Tercek to expand into ESG. Emanuel is now US Ambassador to Japan.

“If you take a step back and think about dealing with a pandemic, cybersecurity, AI, and climate, CEOs and senior businesspeople can be every bit as important or more important than governments,” Haass said. 

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