The Wall Street firm has named a CEO with a history including involvement with the Olympic Committee in Brazil for the country's 2016 games.

Goldman Sachs has named a former president of the Rio 2016 Olympic Committee as chief executive and president of its Brazil business.

Maria Silvia Bastos Marques joins the US firm in April, reporting to Gonzalo Garcia and Ram Sundaram, co-heads of Latin America. She replaces Paulo Leme, who retires from the firm at the end of April, after nearly 25 years of service, a spokesperson confirmed to this news service.

In her career, Maria Silvia Bastos Marques has held several positions at BNDES, the Brazilian development bank, mostly recently as its president. She was the president of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN), the Brazilian Steel Institute and Icatu Seguros, and was a partner at MS & CR2 Finanças Corporativas. She has also served on the advisory boards of Petrobras and Vale. 

Brazil's recent economic woes haven't deterred wealth managers from seeing the large Latin American nation as an important market in the medium term. For example, in May last year UBS bought a majority stake in Brazil-based multi-family office CONSENSO, an organization overseeing more than BRL20 billion (around $6.1 billion). Merrill Lynch last year flagged the importance of Brazil with a senior hire, to take another example. Brazil-based Safra, part of a long-standing business dynasty, owns the Switzerland-headquartered Sarasin private banking group. In October 2015, rules restricting Brazilian investors in holding foreign assets were relaxed.