Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) served as the 74th United States Treasury Secretary and is a member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Time magazine named Paulson as a runner-up for its Person of the Year 2008, saying, with reference to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008: "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his".

He was born in Palm Beach, Florida, to Marianna Gallauer and Henry Merritt Paulson, a wholesale jeweler. He was raised in Barrington Hills, Illinois, as a Christian Scientist. Paulson attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.

A star athlete at Barrington High School, Paulson was a champion wrestler and stand-out football player, graduating in 1964. Paulson received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Dartmouth College in 1968; at Dartmouth he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Alpha Epsilon and he was an All Ivy, All East, and honorable mention All American as an offensive lineman.