What female employees say about Goldman Sachs culture

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For female employees past and present, Goldman Sachs’ $215 million settlement of a longstanding gender discrimination lawsuit was not just a reminder of the bank’s troubled history with women. With only weeks to go before the trial, she squandered the opportunity to air the practices that continue to plague the Wall Street firm.

“The behavior could have been revealed,” said Jamie Fiore Higgins, who was one of Goldman’s top executives before resigning in 2016 and last year posted thug market, memories of his 17 years in the bank. “And now guess what? They wrote a check.”

“Each generation has been better in relative terms. On an absolute basis, it’s still terrible,” she added.

The Financial Times spoke to more than a dozen current and former Goldman employees about their experiences working for the bank.

His comments highlight perceptions that despite some progress, Goldman is still grappling with some of the challenges outlined in the 2010 class action lawsuit. These include feelings that raising a family can hinder women’s careers in ways that it does not happen with men, and that there are very few women in leadership roles.

“I would have been better compensated if I hadn’t been a mother,” a woman who recently left the bank told the Financial Times. “For the guys, most of the people I interacted with, their wives didn’t work.”

Meanwhile, a current employee said: “Goldman promises women for a long time that they will be senior leaders, then do nothing about it.”

While the women interviewed said there were few signs of the overt sexism that was prevalent on Wall Street decades ago, they felt that the bank’s culture remained less accessible to women with no interest in sports, and that speaking up about certain topics could still hurt their lives. careers.

“For me there was never any explicit bias,” said another woman who recently left the bank. “It was harder to interact with some of the older men in the same informal way as other male colleagues at my level.”

A current junior employee said that although “on a very theoretical level, we are encouraged to speak up. . . in practice if you say something controversial it is not well received”.

After announcing the gender discrimination payout, one of the largest in US corporate history, Goldman Sachs said it was “proud of its long record of promoting and advancing women” and remained “committed to ensure a diverse and inclusive workplace. It has set itself the goal of having a global workforce, currently around 45,000, that is evenly divided between men and women, beginning with its analysts and junior associates.

Female employees are better represented in Goldman’s junior ranks and a challenge for the company is retaining more of them as they become more senior.

Jacqueline Arthur, Goldman’s director of human capital management, insisted that diversity was “a future priority for the company.”

“Our analyst and associate class in North America was 45 per cent female, reflecting a 10 per cent growth over the last 10 years,” she told the FT, while female representation in the ranks of CEOs and female members was also on the rise.

Ten of the 31 people on Goldman’s senior management committee are women, but only one… Stephanie Cohen Who runs the bank’s platform solutions business runs a revenue-generating business, a flagrant shortage for many of the bank’s employees.

Goldman’s fight to build a more diverse workforce is a reflection of trends in the broader financial services industry. A 2021 report from McKinsey and LeanIn.org found that women in North America “remained dramatically underrepresented” in the financial services industry, particularly in senior management positions.

Citigroup’s Jane Fraser is the only woman to run a major US bank and the leading contenders to take over as CEO of another major Wall Street firm, Morgan Stanley, are all men.

“It’s not like one individual said, ‘hey, let’s keep women away’; That’s not how it works,” said Martin Davidson, professor of business administration and global director of diversity at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “It’s just in the water. . . masculinity is the bread and butter of the investment banking industry.”

But Goldman faces a particularly acute challenge given its 24-hour work culture, which women feel often affects them more than men.

“I really think Goldman is trying, but there is an industry problem and there is a lifestyle problem,” said a junior banker who recently resigned from Goldman.

“It’s really more about opportunities and support as a woman at Goldman in terms of career progression,” said a woman who works at the bank. “There are very few women at the top, especially those who run businesses.”

Outside of the management committee, women leading Goldman’s businesses include Kim Posnett, who was recently promoted to head of investment banking’s technology, media and telecommunications group, co-head of Beth Hammack’s financing division and co-head of business of private wealth management. Meena Flynn.

The roots of the legal case go back to 2005, when Cristina Chen-Oster resigned from Goldman after eight years of what she says was consistent and systematic discrimination. She later filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an agency of the United States government.

Chen-Oster eventually sued Goldman, partnering with two other former employees, Shanna Orlich and Lisa Parisi, and built a class action case with more than 2,800 participants.

The allegations centered on Goldman’s performance appraisal practices of “360 reviews” and “cross-reviews,” which involved interviews with colleagues and managers, and were used to inform pay decisions and promotions. The plaintiffs asserted that the results of these processes clearly indicated a entrenched bias against women in Goldman’s investment banking, asset management and trading business.

The lawsuit alleged that the women returned from maternity leave with diminished career prospects and that Goldman’s managers, most of whom are men, had unchecked discretion over how they assigned projects to their teams.

A woman who worked at Goldman Sachs during the period covered by the lawsuit described a culture in which going to HR to air problems made you “a pariah for life.”

“The firm offers several channels through which such concerns can be raised without fear of retaliation,” the bank said.

In the years since the lawsuit began in 2010, Goldman has addressed some of the allegations, including repurposing 360 reviews to focus on career development rather than performance appraisal.

“Goldman has made significant changes to its practices because of our lawsuit,” said Anne Shaver, a partner at Lieff Cabraser who represented the class action plaintiffs.

As part of the agreement, Goldman has pledged to continue several of these policies and has agreed to hire an economist to identify gender pay gaps over the next three years.

Goldman Doesn’t Release Pay Gap Figures For Its US Business The Median Hour payment difference The ratio of men to women at Goldman Sachs International, its main UK entity, was 53 per cent in 2022, up slightly from the previous year, though it says that men and women in similar roles are similarly paid.

Arthur said the bank offered “industry-leading benefits that support our professional women,” including at least 20 weeks leave for men and women after having a child, 20 days leave in case of miscarriage or loss of pregnancy and lactation rooms in their offices around the world.

Last year, Goldman also named more black and female partners than ever before as part of a biennial ritual filling its elite ranks. They were joined by other partners, including Senior Legal Counsel Kathy Ruemmler, Managing Director Ericka Leslie and Co-Head of Global Financing Beth Hammack.

However, while the Goldman women welcome the efforts, some are skeptical that real change will be felt quickly.

“You can’t fault them for trying to make a change,” said one current employee. “We’ll see if they stick with it and if it has an impact.”

Additional reporting by Taylor Nicole Rodgers and Harriet Agnew