He is Chair Emeritus of the Brookings Institution, Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Asia Society, and a Professor and Director of the Global Leadership Program at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing. Mr. Thornton retired in 2003 as President and a member of the board of the Goldman Sachs Group.
He is the Lead Director of the Ford Motor Company, SparkCognition, the leading industrial AI company, and Divergent, the leading industrial digital manufacturing company. He is the former Vice Chairman of the Board of Morehouse College and a trustee, advisory board member or member of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, McKinsey Advisory Council, Schwarzman Scholars, the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, and the Tsinghua School of Public Policy and Management.
In 2007, Institutional Investor Magazine named Mr. Thornton as one of 40 individuals who had the greatest influence in shaping global financial markets over the previous forty years. He was a recipient in 2008 of the Friendship Award of the People's Republic of China, the highest honor accorded to a non-Chinese citizen. The Chinese government also named him as one of fifteen ‘foreign experts’ who had made the most significant contribution to China’s development over the previous three decades.
Mr. Thornton received an A.B. in history from Harvard College, a B.A./M.A. in jurisprudence from Oxford University and an M.P.P.M. from the Yale School of Management. Mr. Thornton was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007 and an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford University in 2009.
他同时担任布鲁金斯学会名誉主席、亚洲协会联席理事长、北京清华大学经济管理学院全球领导力项目负责人兼教授。此前，桑顿先生是高盛集团总裁兼董事，于 2003 年从该集团退休。
他还担任福特汽车公司、领先的工业人工智能公司 SparkCognition及领先的工业数字制造 公司 Divergent 首席董事。此外，他还是美国莫尔豪斯学院校董会前任副主席，也是中国中投公司、阿卜杜拉国王科技大学、麦肯锡顾问委员会、清华大学苏世民书院、清华大学经济管理学院及清华大学公共管理学院等机构的理事、顾问委员会委员或成员。
2007 年，桑顿先生被著名的 Institutional Investor(《机构投资者》)杂志评选为 40 年来 全球金融市场最有影响力的四十名人士之一。2008 年，桑顿先生被授予中华人民共和国友谊奖，这是中国政府颁发给外籍人士的最高奖项。此外，桑顿先生还被中国政府评选为改革开放三十年来对中国发展贡献最突出的十五名海外专家之一。
桑顿先生早年在哈佛大学获历史学学士学位，在牛津大学获法学学士和硕士学位，在耶鲁 大学管理学院获企业管理硕士学位。2007 年桑顿先生被选为美国艺术与科学院院士， 2009 年被牛津大学圣约翰学院选为荣誉院士。