Tag Archive for: Financial Services

Sheetal Prasad, CFA: Managing Director, Jennison Associates

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Sheetal Prasad“I think the constant in my life is that you’re moving to the next level. You’re moving to a new challenge,” says Sheetal Prasad, Small Cap Core and Mid Cap Growth Portfolio Manager at Jennison Associates, “And even though you might not think that you’re ready, you are.”

Prasad talks about the continuous learning curve, the value of culture, diversity of thought and being your whole self at work.

From Pre-Med to Portfolio Manager

Like a “good Indian girl”, Prasad began pre-med at Georgetown. When she realized being a doctor was not her calling, she switched to business. At first, she remained in the healthcare territory, working in a market research firm before moving to Wall Street.

A few years in, she leapt from the sell-side research to buy-side investment management, and then landed at Jennison, thirteen years ago. Soon she was challenged to diversify her expertise. 

“I got the opportunity to become a small-cap portfolio manager, but you have to know stocks across the entire universe – not just healthcare, but tech stocks and consumer stocks and industrial stocks,” says Prasad. “The truth is I didn’t have the background for that, but you’re given an opportunity, and you take it.” 

Today, most of her time is spent on mid-cap portfolio management.

“I had to learn to love to read. It’s so critical. My job is predicting the future to some degree. It’s finding those companies that are so well-positioned in certain industries that they can continue to grow from being a smaller market value to larger over time,” says Prasad. “The way you do that is by constantly reading or listening and continuing to learn. Learning is the best part of my job everyday.”

How I Built This, Invest Like The Best, The Knowledge Project and Masters of Scale are among podcasts that inform her professionally. 

Culture & Social Responsibility Matter More Now

“It’s pretty clear that we aren’t going back to the old normal, so what is that ‘new normal’?” asks Prasad. “How are we going to work – and play – differently? How will life change? Who are the companies that will enable that change and are going to be able to thrive?”

In addition to new companies and business models, Prasad is paying attention to company culture. The post-pandemic world has brought out the true value of culture.

“I have a much greater appreciation for culture today in my investment portfolios and the companies that I invest in,” she says. “Because I think that really is the difference between a company that can grow to be bigger, versus a company that might not make it.”

Investing responsibly is paramount to Prasad, such as considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.

“As our portfolio companies are becoming more social stewards, we also have to follow that,” states Prasad. “If I don’t feel good about investing in a company, I don’t have to do it.”

“I take my fiduciary and social responsibilities very seriously. It’s the way the investment business is going to be going forward, and we have to be good at it,” she says. “Part of who I am is having a social responsibility to my family, my community, but also to my job and my investors.“

Diversity of Thought And Voices

“In our business, diversity is not just on the outside, but it’s really about  diversity of thought,” notes Prasad. “If we all think the same way, we’re not going to do well in a stock market, where we need to be prepared for low probability events and be willing to react.”

Diversity of thought is essential to preventing blindspots, cognitive dissonance and ‘thesis creep’, since her team’s success requires staying open-minded to ‘what ifs’ and the healthy friction of debate. 

A candidate that questions a stock the firm holds, from a genuine and informed place, is an asset.

“Everybody is absolutely respectful, but you can’t be shy,” says Prasad. “We don’t hire wallflowers. We want people to express their opinions, because an exchange of ideas is critical to performance.”

Be Visible And Ask Questions

“The financial services industry is behind in their ability to attract and retain and promote women,” states Prasad, though Jennison does better. “And it’s both a top-down problem and a bottom-up problem.”

While face-time is essential to building culture and relationship, she feels the post-pandemic disruption has revealed it’s possible to work more virtually. This could help to attract women and diversity of thought. 

Prasad encourages women to sit visibly at the table, not the periphery, and express their opinions. If there’s one thing she wishes she’d known earlier, it is to not be afraid to ask “dumb questions”. Be communicative and ask questions, especially when you shift between roles or jobs. 

“I’m asking dumb questions all the time,” she says. “Chances are there’s somebody else sitting at the table that also doesn’t understand.”

She encourages women to take a page from men’s confidence book, and when opportunity presents, take the leap before you think you are ready – knowing you will figure it out, and it’s okay also to fail sometimes. 

“I’ve long come to realize that I have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” she states. “I’ve had imposter syndrome throughout my entire career. I’ve had to use that discomfort to get smarter, to get better, and to drive towards better performance. It doesn’t stop.”

Being Your Whole Self

Prasad begins her days with yoga before logging on, and recommends to take the time to do whatever helps clear your mind and support your well-being, as often as possible. She is finding working at home is also allowing her to feel more present at work. 

“I think very often in life you can’t be really good at your job if you feel as though you’re not giving 100% to your personal life, because that really is the core of who you are. My children, my family, are so important to me,” she says. ”The fact that I can be here for my family allows me to give just as much energy to my job.”

Prasad has learned the value of bringing her authentic self, including her emotions and extroversion, that complements some of her colleagues, to her work.

“In my early career, I was stoic. I felt like it’s all about the job,” she recalls. “Over time, I came to realize it’s okay to care. It’s okay to share. I am going to be emotional about this job and it’s okay. Because the best part of a job really is the people and the relationships you develop.”

“I love my team so much that I think it’s okay for me to show that I’m a woman, that I’ve got family obligations, that I laugh or I cry, or show what bothers me.” She exhales. “Chances are someone else might be going through something similar, and if you can share, they feel like they can. That’s where the team dynamic really comes through. Those small personal interactions go a long way.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Allison Yacker: Partner and Co-Chair, Investment Management and Funds, Katten

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Allison Yacker“From the moment I joined Katten, the attorneys most keen to invest in me — both personally and professionally — quickly became my mentors,” says Katten’s Allison Yacker.

“Reflecting on that moment, not only were those mentors some of the smartest and hardest working attorneys at Katten, but more importantly they were the ones who realized this was a two-way street.” Years later, Yacker now co-chairs the firm’s Investment Management and Funds practice and is based in New York.

Yacker offered insights on her journey to becoming a firm leader, and being recognized as a great mother and a go-to legal counsel for some of the largest global financial institutions.

Pivoting to Make Her Own Path, and Rising to Leadership at Katten

Throughout her 18 years at Katten, Yacker continues to rise through the firm ranks: from being selected as a summer associate, to becoming one of the youngest capital partners in the firm, to acting as a co-chair of the New York Financial Markets and Funds practice group and serving as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors.

“I knew Katten was a great place to work, and by the time I was a third-year associate I had solidified a terrific roster of mentors who happened to be all men,” Yacker said. “As I thrived in my career, I was determined to make capital partner by the time I was 40 and to serve in a leadership position at the firm because I wanted to prove to myself that it was possible and to help create a similar path for other women in the firm.”

And she did just that.

Yacker began her career at Katten in the corporate group, handling general securities work and mergers and acquisitions. She credits this experience with providing her the skillset that would serve as the foundation for her current practice. 

Soon Yacker was presented with the opportunity to be seconded to a major financial institution, where she gained practical legal experience in the derivatives and private funds market. Yacker relished the experience, and quickly found that the clients she enjoyed working with the most were traders and key decision-makers at hedge funds and private equity funds.

When she returned to the firm from her secondment, she quickly realized that she was one of only a few associates who could handle complex derivatives and structured products transactions for both the buy and sell sides. These types of transactions were regularly handled by the Financial Markets and Funds group, so when practice leaders invited her to join the group she knew it would provide her the platform needed to expand upon this niche. She jumped at the opportunity.

But in 2008, when the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted, she quickly realized that the complex derivatives transactions that she had spent a significant amount of time on were essentially regulated out of business. Good lawyers anticipate future risks; great lawyers identify it and pivot. It was at that moment Yacker decided to move away from derivatives and toward refocusing her practice on fund formation and investment management. There she found success faster than anticipated, and her clients quickly came and continue to rely on her to serve as their outsourced general counsel. Later on, she would pivot again – this time toward representing sophisticated investors looking to make investments in hedge funds, private equity funds, and other alternative financial products.  

Today Yacker represents hedge funds, private equity funds, commodity pools and managed account platforms that engage in a wide variety of strategies, including quantitative trading, private credit, distressed debt, futures, litigation finance, securitized products, affordable housing, renewable energy and carbon credits, to name a few. She also advises clients with regards to seed and early stage investment opportunities and global regulatory issues that arise in connection with investments in funds and managed accounts.

“You need to be able to work dynamically within your industry to find a practice that makes sense for you — one in which you respect and like the client base, and, most importantly, one that you enjoy,” Yacker said. “Do not be reactionary when it comes to your career, be proactive, take the reins and make the tough decisions.” 

Being Her Personal and Professional Self

In 2018, Yacker was named Katten’s Working Mother of the Year by Working Mother magazine. The article profiling her pointed out how integration of personal and professional self is only growing in importance. 

“Personal and professional—the lines become blurred when you’re predominantly working from home in New York City and raising two children who are remote learning,” she said. “It’s definitely a challenge to shift back and forth between the mom hat, the teacher hat, and the lawyer hat,” says Yacker. “When it comes to my kids, I make every effort to do so with love and respect, and of course a sense of humor, which I know resonates with my children.”

All joking aside, she remarked that her career often dictates that she be deliberate and efficient with her time, and that she create boundaries for herself and her children so that no aspect of the services she provides to her clients is impacted. To that end, she noted that she periodically goes to Katten’s mostly empty midtown Manhattan office when she has an intense work day planned, and joked that she never thought she would enjoy going to an office as much as she does now.

Positive Vibes and Being the Difference

Yacker is most energized about her work when her clients commend her skillset, style and work ethic when it comes to servicing their needs.  

“My clients often remark that they see me as a true counselor — a person that they know will give them not only insightful legal advice and the answer under the law, but also an answer that will work for their businesses,” she says. “My clients know that I am not a scrivener, and that I don’t stop at ‘no you can’t’ when they have a difficult issue — I’m here to solve their problems, to be creative, and to use the resources of my firm to find the best possible solution to any problem they have and to get the deal done.”

Yacker primarily attributes her professional integrity and intense work ethic to her grandfather, whose first job after arriving in America after surviving the Holocaust was that of a janitor who made 65 cents an hour. Through incredibly hard work, her grandfather eventually built a successful business. Both of her grandfathers were incredibly hard workers but family came first to them. To Yacker, every day that she puts in a hard day at work is a testament to her grandparents and an attempt to honor their memory.

Learning Along the Way

Yacker gained valuable insight while ascending to become one of the firm’s youngest capital partners.

She recommends that young lawyers work with and learn from as many different lawyers as possible. 

“You learn different ways of thinking, different ways of networking, different analytical abilities, and different techniques for maintaining relationships and running a practice,” she observes. “I think that’s been critical to my success.”

Yacker also says that she has always worked hardest for the people who were fully invested in her.

“Seek out mentors who are looking to invest in you personally and professionally,” says Yacker. “And take those relationships as seriously as possible. And then, give back to younger associates in the same regard.”

And most importantly, she encourages young lawyers to take ownership of their careers — not to wait for an opportunity to be handed to them, but rather to take the initiative in building a successful practice and to think proactively and deliberately about their goals. 

Networking and Outreach

Yacker stays connected with her clients and colleagues — even in pandemic times. Whether it be a virtual group wine tasting, hosting socially-distanced cocktails and meals on her terrace, or virtual tea with clients in London, Yacker tries her best to proactively stay in touch with her clients both professionally and personally.

She has found it particularly fulfilling to work on pro bono matters,  providing legal counsel through the Small Business Legal Relief Alliance to small businesses in New York that are struggling during the global pandemic. 

Yacker also sits on the steering committee and national mentoring panel of the Katten Women’s Leadership Forum, which supports the growth of Katten’s women attorneys with professional development events, networking and practical advice. 

She is also one of the founding members of Katten’s Women in Finance Initiative, which seeks to build a strong community of women within the firm with a view toward driving cross-selling opportunities and driving more business to this community.

She is an Angel Member of 100 Women in Finance, an organization dedicated to empowering women in the finance and alternative investment industries through meaningful connections, high-impact programming and initiatives that help build the pipeline of future leaders in the industry.

Also close to her heart is the new Parents Affinity Group at Katten—a virtual support group for attorneys and business professionals to connect with each other and discuss approaches to navigating work and family responsibilities. 

Crowing Achievement

As committed as she is to her professional success, she views her crowning achievement as the balance she has struck between being a successful lawyer and being a successful mother.

“My children know that mommy’s business means I have to be available to my clients almost all the time, so I work a lot. I think they respect me for how hard I work at my job, but they 100 percent know that they come first and they always will,” Yacker said. 

Yacker’s “work hard, play hard” attitude has always resonated with her sons Jackson and Ashton, ages 8 and 12 respectively. She revels daily in how resilient they are, how kind they are to each other, and how hard they work to do their best in school, even under these extraordinary circumstances. Yacker said she finds inspiration from her kids, who make her want to be the best at anything she is doing.

Her most cherished daily moment is the time when it’s just her and her boys — whether they are on the baseball field, cuddling in bed, or laughing together in hysterics on the couch. Those are the moments she is most grateful for.

By Aimee Hansen

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Andrea Mygrant; Managing Director, Major Accounts; FIS Global

Andrea Mygrant While hard work is important, there’s another key predictor of professional success, says FIS Global’s Andrea Mygrant, and that’s the importance of your network.

“I saw that it was vital early in my career to make sure I had a great mentor who guided me  to prioritize meeting everyone I could—both within my firm and externally with clients—and then to keep in touch.” As she notes, it’s a small community and industry, and she has frequently seen people who have circled back into her life. “They have helped me build new relationships and boosted my progression,” she notes, adding that not everyone realizes how important it is to focus on building that strong network early on to help open doors throughout your career.

Client Service at the Core

Although Mygrant was pursuing a pre-vet track in college, she changed directions after an internship at financial services firm Brown Brothers Harriman which was her first time working in fintech and with clients.

Working at a global custodian firm like that provided an important perspective on how the entire industry worked, thus kicking off her new career path. Ever since, she’s been focused on client relationships, up to her current role where she builds those relationships at an executive level.

With an insatiable curiosity, Mygrant has always looked forward to the next big thing as there’s always something innovative happening in this space. Just recently she helped a large client she’s partnered with over the past two years successfully launch a complex, integrated solution.

“It had very high visibility in the organization.They were looking for a solution of different products to link together using tools that hadn’t been deployed in conjunction before,” Mygrant explains. “We were able to jointly put together the pieces, thus fulfilling a complicated deal with a lot of moving parts and unknowns.” They achieved a successful go live in January 2020. “I’m really proud that we were able to build something brand new that was important for them to be successful, resulting in such a satisfied client.”

In an industry that’s always changing, she’s currently observing the new “blurry lines” separating pure technology firms that are veering into territory occupied by financial institutions. “I’m watching big companies like Amazon or Google and seeing what they will do going forward. It’s vital to be quick to market, and they have the resources to do that.”

Giving Women the Support to Be Successful

As a new mom, Mygrant has been particularly focused on new challenges she’s encountered by being a working mom in the finance industry. Of course, she realizes that many things have improved over the past decade, from extended maternity or paternity leave to funding for IVF to the ability to ship milk when you travel. But here are still disparities—such as the fact that there might be a space set aside to pump, but it’s not always comfortable or convenient. And while some states are improving laws and implementing steps forward, she believes that it’s up to senior women in the workforce to help get the message heard throughout organizations. “Having key programs and options in place makes people want to come back,” she notes. “Support your employees and they’ll be loyal.”

Another way Mygrant sees that companies should support their employees is through robust mentorship programs. “I can’t emphasize enough how much my mentors molded and shaped me in the right way early in my career.” She now pays it forward to other women in her organization but is well aware that in a cost-cutting environment, formal programs may become downscaled or vanish. And that’s a shame she says, since helping guide young professionals is a huge win for companies.

Her advice to newer talent is to never be afraid to ask for what they need or to take chances. “The worst that can happen is that someone says no.” You will never feel 100% confident about something new and so you have to go for it.”

Baking as Relaxation

While free time is at a premium with a young child, Mygrant is still able to indulge in one of her biggest passions—baking. She is a member of a cookbook club and a baking club, and every year around the holidays, which also coincides with her birthday, she takes two days off and bakes upwards of 30 items for a huge holiday party and as gifts for friends. “Baking is a fantastic way to relieve stress and remove yourself from a job that today is a 24-hour endeavor, given all the ways we are connected. It’s a huge relief to do something I enjoy, and at the same time, it allows me to give back to my friends.”

 

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Erika Irish Brown, Chief Diversity Officer, Goldman Sachs

Erika Irish Brown“Be Bold and Take Risks to Be an Agent of Change”

“If you expose people who are smart and hard working to opportunities – and provide them with an access point to begin a career – success follows,” says Goldman Sachs’ Erika Irish Brown.

As Goldman’s new Chief Diversity Officer, Brown is responsible for driving inclusive culture initiatives and efforts related to the firm’s recruitment, retention and advancement of diverse professionals.

She notes she is genuinely passionate about promoting diversity and inclusion in the financial services industry. “The sense of purpose I have for my work drives me every day.”

A Beneficiary and Proponent of Diversity and Inclusion

Brown’s first introduction to financial services came via a year-long internship as a college student, which was offered specifically to students from underrepresented minority groups by a state-run bond agency. She describes the internship as a huge win given her alma mater – the State University of New York at Albany – did not send a high volume of graduates to Wall Street at that time.

This internship helped her land an analyst role at Lehman Brothers, which she says was a life-changing opportunity. “Very often, people ask me, why am I so committed to diversity and inclusion?” says Brown. “One reason is because I got my start on Wall Street as a beneficiary of what we now call a diversity and inclusion program.”

After working in investment banking at Lehman, Brown went on to issue bonds for the City of New York and served as a Presidential appointee at the US Treasury in the Clinton administration, ultimately earning her MBA from Columbia University and serving in roles at Morgan Stanley and Black Entertainment Television. She enjoyed the financial markets, the fast-paced nature of her work and the variety of people she was able to work with, but added: “It was a different time – gender, ethnic diversity was low.”

Brown took an interest in the diversity and inclusion (D&I) space, serving as a recruiting liaison for both on-campus and experienced hires – on top of her day job as a banker.

Prior to the financial crisis, Brown began her first ‘official’ diversity-focused role, once again, at Lehman, where her team focused on enhancing diversity at the vice president level and above. Post-crisis – and a brief stint on the Obama administration’s Treasury transition team – Brown joined Bank of America, where she built a team focused on executive diversity recruiting. From there, she went on to serve as Bloomberg’s chief diversity officer, building the company’s D&I platform from the ground up.

“Being considered a subject matter expert on diversity globally has made me very proud,” says Brown. “This is not easy work, it is not easily measured and you have to be bold and take risks in order to be an agent of change.” This risk-taking has led Brown to Goldman Sachs, where she has a large, global platform to influence diversity.

Evaluating and Developing New Approaches at Goldman Sachs

“It was important for me to come in and listen, learn and talk to people,” says Brown of her approach to her new role at the firm last year. “I wanted my expertise to be informed by the culture here.”

After connecting with stakeholders across regions and divisions and gaining a global perspective, she now feels well informed to have opinions, make assessments and execute on the best practices and strategies that will work for Goldman Sachs.

Brown outlines some of the many opportunities in the D&I space she hopes to focus on in the coming months:

  • Enhance the Goldman Sachs brand as an employer of choice in diverse communities;
  • Embed D&I practices into all aspects of the Talent process;
  • Advance the firm’s inclusive culture and work environment; and
  • Ensure accountability for furthering D&I at every level

Her team has the support from CEO David Solomon and the firm’s Global Diversity Committee. Brown notes that it is crucial to have senior leadership setting the tone – particularly when diversity impacts each and every area of a company, from business performance to client engagement.

“Today, no topics are off the table in the workplace, and people expect to bring their authentic selves to work,” says Brown. “I’ve seen firsthand that this approach has been adopted at Goldman Sachs as well.”

Recommendations From a Life-Long Learner

Describing her roles at several investment banks and why young women should pursue financial services careers, Brown says, “The skills sets you develop in a short period of time, the amount of responsibility and high bar for expectations, and the seniority of people – both internally and clients – that you engage with is empowering.”

Her advice to women as they progress in their careers is to continuously innovate and be life-long learners.

“Ask yourself – are you pushing the envelope, taking risks and being ambitious,” says Brown. “We should all reflect upon our legacy and ensure we make a difference in our workplace – it can be anything from launching a new product to creating opportunities for others.”

Outside the office, Brown continues to push for change in her community. As vice chair of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, she works to ensure the Central Brooklyn community has access to housing, education and economic development opportunities, arts and cultural activities and capital for small business owners.

Brown stresses: “giving back is important to me – anything I can do to contribute and give back to others, I’ll do.”

And, a mother to three sons, Brown also keeps busy on the slopes, skiing in the winter with her family and cheering on from the sidelines of elite AAU basketball games. “We’re very active as a family, and our time together is so important and a priority to me,” she says.

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Katie Koch, Partner, Goldman Sachs

Katie KochGiven the sizable success that Goldman Sachs’ Katie Koch has had in her career, it may seem surprising that failure is one of the factors that drives her.

“Taking risks and refusing to be paralyzed by a fear of failure has served me well,” she says, explaining that she has developed a sound personal philosophy and approach to taking risk. “I approach every challenge with a philosophy that my mom introduced to me and my siblings when she would say, ‘What choice would you make if you knew you would not fail?’”

Taking that approach has allowed Koch to make decisions based on optimism rather than fear and has biased her towards taking calculated risks. “When you’re taking risk repeatedly, you’re naturally going to occasionally fail, so it’s important to view failure as fuel,” she says. A quote that has resonated with her came from an inspiring commencement address by soccer superstar Abby Wambach, who said, “Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it’s something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You got to learn to make failure your fuel.”

If something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to, figure out why, and move forward with those lessons, Koch advises.

Taking Risks Leads to Diverse and Rewarding Career Path

Although Koch has spent 16 years with Goldman Sachs, it’s as though she’s had several careers, given the diverse portfolio of experiences she’s had – across different divisions, offices (Chicago, London and New York) and four different business lines. One of her favorite roles is working with incoming talent, and she always makes sure to express how this wealth of opportunities allows professionals at Goldman Sachs to experience a fulfilling career – at one firm.

Koch acknowledges it can be challenging to start over with a new business, team and mandate, but the advantages of working in a new business are immense.

First, she has been able to build a deep network, and secondly, working in different roles allows you to have additional context as you inevitably come across problems you’ve tackled before.

And while she was grateful to be named a partner at the age of 36, the aspect that was most meaningful was having so many people, including her own team, champion her throughout the process. “I believe that the more senior you become, the more dependent your success is on having the best team around you and the right sponsorship above you.”

Living Out a Commitment to Diversity

Koch’s belief in the importance of diversity permeates every aspect of her role at Goldman Sachs. She sees a strong business case for spending time and effort to build diverse teams, and her role helping to lead the equity business – which oversees $65 billion in assets – has proven that diversity of thought is critical to positive investment outcomes. “Successful investing requires the healthy tension of variant perspectives, so it’s a competitive advantage that we have a highly diverse investing team; more than half of our assets are handled by talented portfolio managers who happen to be women, an industry-leading statistic,” she notes.

At the firmwide level, Koch is a champion of Launch With GS, a new initiative that will invest $500 million of the firm’s and its clients’ capital in private, late-stage, women-founded, women-owned or women-led companies, through direct funding, as well as seeding women investment managers who are starting their own funds. “Our ambition is to become a partner of choice for women seeking to scale their businesses and build capital,” she says of the effort.

Sharing Advice That Has Propelled Her Career

Mentoring women is important to Koch, and one lesson that she is quick to impart is that you have to treat a career differently than school. Women in particular excel in the academic environment, where they are rewarded for subject mastery; however, when women transition to a career, they often remain on that path and focus on the content of their role and “keeping their head down.” While it’s vital to be a subject matter expert at your core, she finds women tend to overinvest in this, but chronically underinvest in developing their network.

“I encourage young women to be exceptional at what they do, but also be deliberate in carving out time to meet people in their direct line of business and across their firm, industry and client base, all of which will help you build seniority over the long arc of your career,” she says. “You need to balance what you know with who you know.”

As the beneficiary of a supportive community of other partners, she advises her peers to continue to signal ambition – appropriately of course – and create a plan to articulate career goals to the right people, at the right moment and in the right way.

“It’s so important to think boldly and have a clearly defined top-level goal. Knowing exactly where you want to go allows you to organize your time and efforts toward those aspirational roles,” she says, recommending that while women should focus on outstanding execution in their current role, they should also be asking themselves, “Am I working toward my next job?”

Koch comments, “One of the best ways to prove you are deserving of a job is to act as though you already have the title – even before it is officially yours. That communicates to others that you are hungry, proactive and will bring solutions as a leader.”

One of the programs that was particularly beneficial to Koch was the personal coaching that Goldman Sachs offers, where the coach solicits direct feedback from everyone you work with and provides insight to help you grow as a professional.

Koch noted, “As you achieve early success in your career you can lose sight of how much room there is to improve. This is compounded by the fact that as you get more senior, less people are willing to give you tough feedback directly.”

The coaching process can help you address your blind spots, and Koch found real value in getting this feedback to continue to grow and evolve in her career. She shares, “Once I really opened myself up to the feedback, I learned some profound truths about myself as a professional and a manager. I distinctly remember my coach trying to make the point that people felt shut-down when I interrupted them. I interjected to explain that I don’t interrupt people – I just help them reach a conclusion more quickly. She had to gently point out that I had just interrupted her to explain that I don’t interrupt people!” Taking feedback can be humbling, but Koch believes that self-actualization is only possible when you seek out areas to improve at every stage of your career.

Despite the many hats she wears at work, Koch’s main priority is her family—her husband, two daughters and a son born a few weeks ago. With three children aged four and under, she feels extremely fortunate to have bosses such as Tim O’Neill and Eric Lane, who don’t see successful careers and meaningful family lives as mutually exclusive. “I have had an exceptionally positive experience at Goldman Sachs simultaneously growing my career and my family. I think it underscores the importance for women to choose their employer and their boss wisely.”

“My family is my biggest priority, but I always think of what we say in investing—we won’t get the stock picks right every time, but we try to get it right over time. To me that is the ideal metaphor for integrating life and family. My family can’t come first every time, but they must come first over time, and my goal is to organize my life that way.”

Prior to kids, she and her husband indulged a love of adventure travel; she has been to all seven continents—including Antarctica for her honeymoon—and has climbed extensively from Kilimanjaro to the Alps. For now, most of her adventures take place through books. As an avid reader, she averages about a book a week and frequently trades recommendations with her mom and her team.

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Shital Bhatt, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Shital Bhatt

A career is built by playing the long game, chess, not checkers, says Goldman Sachs’ Shital Bhatt.

“What I thought was most important when I was more junior, the technical and functional skills, need to be supplemented with attributes such as being resilient and having grit,” she says. “I wish I had learned earlier, especially as a woman in the financial services sector and with a minority background, how important it is to recover quickly, persevere and not let challenges get you down,” she shares.

Growing Her Career to Earn Those Two Important Letters

Bhatt joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2004 in the Operations Division, and although she’s spent her tenure within this division, she’s had many different experiences, both in function, moving from derivatives to securities. Also moving geographically, beginning in the New York office, moving to New Jersey, and taking a global opportunity in Hong Kong before finally transferring back to New York in 2016.

While it was unexpected, as she was still at a relatively junior level, traveling and living abroad for work had always been enticing to her; although she had assumed the farthest she would transfer would be London. However, when her former manager asked her to join a team he was building in Hong Kong, she booked a one-way ticket in 2010 having never even visited before, and remained there for five-and-a-half years. “It was an amazing opportunity to learn many different functions, and living in Hong Kong was an equally enriching personal and cultural experience,” Bhatt says.

She considers building a life abroad one of the professional achievements she is most proud of thus far. Having always lived close to home, she found it to be a high-risk/high-reward opportunity, but she figured that if her parents could immigrate to the United States in the ‘70s with minimal support, she could take on this challenge.

Bhatt’s second notable career moment was being named a managing director. Reaching this level was always her aspiration, given the many MD role models she admired, but she also finds the accomplishment significant as a first-generation Indian American. “I was one of two daughters, and my parents wanted to give us a great education to fulfill the ‘American dream,’” she says.

“Telling my parents I was named managing director was one of the happiest days of their life, and it was a meaningful way for me to thank them for what they did to help me persevere and get to this level.” She laughs, since everyone in her family is in the sciences – and her dad always wanted her to be a doctor – that she was proud she could finally tell him she was an “MD.”

Bhatt finds that one of the best parts of the industry is seeing how technological advances will change things for the better. For example, she has been fascinated by the intersection between disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence as they converge with the highly regulated financial sector.

“We are seeing how we can incorporate the best technology available into our controlled environment at an appetite that regulators will be comfortable with. I love seeing how other industries outside of financial services are making it work,” she says.

Helping Build the Talent Pipeline

When considering the challenges of being a woman in the industry, Bhatt believes that key issues are numbers, retention and representation. “There aren’t enough women, so we need to not only attract women as junior candidates, but retain them over a long career.” She says one solution is to help women who are currently in school or graduating discount a misconception that the industry is overly conservative and rigid. “Other people have paved the way as the industry has evolved to be more welcoming, and that will only continue if we bring in even more people who are eager to ensure the industry is more diverse.”

She goes on to stress: “getting women in the door isn’t enough – it’s important for leadership to nurture and grow talent through the ranks by giving their team members interesting and challenging responsibilities.”

In addition, Bhatt believes that as firms work toward equal gender representation, typical stereotypes tied to gender – such as men being “assertive leaders,” and women being viewed as “good teammates” – will evolve.

She says it’s vital that women in top positions take care to spot talent and spend time mentoring the junior population. “Remember that you used to be that analyst admiring the MD and looking for advice and encouragement,” she says. “A good leader can listen to a wide variety of ideas and champion the great ones. It helps the team feel empowered when you listen and assess ideas, then help get the best ideas across the finish line.” She adds it’s equally important to make sure that men are also advocating for women.

Bhatt has benefitted from a number of programs offered by Goldman Sachs, notably when she participated in a program in Asia that brought women in the region together to develop their leadership skills, and provided them with the opportunity to forge connections with senior leaders and one another.

In addition, Bhatt is passionate about the firm’s affinity networks; she was a member, then a steering committee leader and now managing director sponsor for the Operations Asian Professionals Network in the Americas. “I love giving back to this community, and I am honored to be that role model, so if a junior person is hoping to go down the MD road, it will become more accessible when they see someone who looks like them,” she says.

Bhatt is a proponent of maintaining a work/life balance; including understanding when it’s time to engage in new activities to support that goal. While in Asia, she picked up a passion for wellness once she realized that the environment offered plenty of opportunities for socializing – but Hong Kong’s “concrete jungle” didn’t provide many chances for outdoor activities. Bhatt joined a boot camp and practiced yoga, eventually earning her certification – not to actively teach but as a personal achievement. She also traveled extensively in the region, visiting 20 countries across Asia.

One of the driving factors in her desire to return to the United States was family; she has two teenage nephews with whom she is extremely close. “I appreciate that I can give them a picture of a family member in corporate America, and I can help them navigate competitive waters to help shape their paths and give them guidance, such as putting them in touch with the right people and helping them engage in different hobbies and extracurricular activities. In that way, I get to serve as a life coach,” Bhatt says.

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