DEI tussle: Goldman Sachs’ tryst with diversity shows that talk is cheap

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On Goldman Sachs Group chief executive officer (CEO) David Solomon’s second day on the job in 2018, I listened to him address a conference audience made up of some of the most powerful women in the world. It was clear he was trying to send a strong message by spending one of his crucial early days as chief executive in this way.

“What could be better? I spent time with clients and women, two of my top priorities," he said to the crowd. Solomon’s competitors for the top job had all been men, but he told the group that as CEO, he wanted to change that—to make sure diverse candidates were in the mix for leadership jobs across the firm. It has not been going well.

This month, after more than a year of consideration, the company named 17 executives to its management committee. Just three of them are women, and only one of the three—Kim Posnett, now global co-head of the investment banking business—is in a job that generates revenue for the firm. That means that among the three, only Posnett is positioned to have a shot at reaching the investment company’s highest ranks.

“Implying that there’s a two-class system of senior women is offensive," a Goldman spokesman said when Bloomberg News pointed it out. But in reality, this is how Goldman and the rest of corporate America works, and it’s one of the key reasons so few women ever make it to the very top. They get relegated to support roles rather than revenue-generating ones, or to other jobs that are seen as less prestigious.