David M. Solomon, Chairman and CEO, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Emma Dicks, Co-founder, CodeSpace Academy, South Africa
Rayana Edwards, Director, Harem Consult; Founder, Sari For Change, South Africa
Moderator: Jen Wieczner, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2020: The Goldman Sachs & Fortune Global Women Leaders Award

David M. Solomon, Chairman and CEO, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

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Goldman Sachs has moved the needle on gender diversity by setting non-optional targets and holding people accountable for hitting them.

Hello, I'm Fortune senior writer Jen Wagner. Each year Fortune has the pleasure of honoring women from around the world who embrace advocacy, empowerment and mentoring. The Goldman Sachs Fortune Global Women Leaders Award is presented to women making a difference in their communities. Joining me now to help announce this year's recipients, Goldman Sachs Chairman and Ceo David Solomon, thank you so much for being here. David, Thank you. Thank you for having me, jen, I'm thrilled to be here. This is this is always an event I look forward to and I'm, I'm glad to be with everybody virtually this year. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, we're glad to have you. I believe this is around your second year anniversary of Goldman sectors. You spend your first day on the job uh with us at M. P. W summit a couple of years ago, um we have some exciting rewards to present, but before we do that, I want to check in with you, I know you set some very ambitious targets for yourself coming in, Um, in terms of how you are going to increase, not just gender diversity, but diversity of in Goldman's talent pipeline. And you accomplished that with Goldman's 2020 classes, at least the one that was slated to start this summer, which was 50% women, 10% black. And you had some other diversity metrics there too, that you hit, where are you moving the goal post now? Where do you go next And has the pandemic made that any more difficult? Uh well, I appreciate the question, jen and we're spending a lot of time on the journey that we're on to try to continue to impact the diversity of Goldman Sachs. And we've made some good progress as you highlight over the last couple of years. And there's been some learnings from that. I think we've really learned that by setting very specific aspirational goals and then holding people accountable with great transparency, you can advance forward and you highlighted the incoming analyst class, which despite the fact that the world is virtual, we did have 2800 analysts around the world starts during the course of the summer. Um, and it was the most diverse class we've ever had. And we reached and achieve goals that we laid out just a couple of years ago, we made the announcement just a few months ago about trying to strive to increase the diversity of the vice president level in the organization. And just as we had done, we set up specific goals that we had to advance over the course of the next five years and we have now created more transparency around that are trying to hold the organization accountable to move forward on those goals too. So we're going to continue to think about more transparency is a really positive tool to push the organization forward, setting goals that are achievable. They might not be where we want to be, but if you continue to move in that direction, you continue to create a more diverse and inclusive culture and by doing that and makes it easier to advance from there and we're going to continue on that journey and we've got work to do great. Uh so now for the awards, we have two winners, both from South Africa. First the mentee winner is Emma Dicks, who is the co founder of Code Space Academy and then for the Goldman 10,000 women winner, it's Rihanna Edwards, director of harem, consult and founder of Sorry for Change, Congratulations and now please enjoy this video of our winners. My name is Emma Dicks and I'm a winner of the Golden Sachs Fortune Women's Leadership Award. In 2018 I participated in the Fortune Department of State Mentoring Program. I was mentored by Vanessa Broadhurst and Wilmer scott at johnson johnson. Under the leadership of stan lee Peterson. I'm the founder of the education institution, Code Space Academy, which specializes in teaching I. T. Skills. My mission is to make take education accessible. But more young South Africans, particularly young black women, can find employment and ultimately right leadership in the tech industry now is a pivotal moment in South Africa as the government has recently announced the inclusion of coding and robotics, international curriculum. This award will help me support under resourced schools and teaching coding With all young South Africans can have equal opportunity to contribute to our tech industry. I foresee this giving rise to a generation of African tech leaders. I'm Brianna Edwards and I'm from Johannesburg South Africa. I'm the Ceo of Khorram consult and a 10,000 Goldman Sachs women graduate program. I graduated in the year 2015. My project is about up skilling women towards self sufficiency. We started creative hubs in the township where we train women in garment making and basic business skills. Women paid forward with a gently worn saris and were able to re create new garments linking the project to the circular economy. This playing forward model allows for women to earn while cultivating skills and through training through the incubation. They are able to operate in safe spaces at the schools in their community, most times around the kids with a high rate of unemployment and poverty in our country. Sorry, but change has proven to be a catalyst for women to become self employed and to gap into a market that is ready within the sustainable fashion space. With the funds that I will receive, we will be creating more incubation hubs linked to different primary schools throughout Johannesburg. I am humbled to be the recipient of this award in 2020. Well, I know David joins me in congratulating those women that we just saw. How impressive um, I wanted to also ask you, David a little bit about a new initiative you started this summer, which is that Goldman uh, said that they will not take a company public unless at least one of their board members is diverse, either female or of another diverse background. What does that change? Has that made you, have you refused to take companies public because of that? Well, we, we we laid this out and I laid it out in uh, at Davos last january and we laid it out because we were trying to find ways that we could use our platform to advance the diversity on boards. And so of course it is not aspirational to have on a public company board, just one diverse member. Um, in fact, that's, that's, that's not right at all, but we wanted to take a proactive step and send a message that we think this is important. And so we said, we will not take companies public without diversity on their boards. We want that to increase next year to two diverse members. And we are, we are not taking companies public that don't meet that. I think the big benefit that comes from it is it's really put more focus on the need to really think about diversity and boards, not just in companies we take public or the market takes public and in big public companies where I think for a period of time there's been an embrace in moving that diversity forward. But when you look at private companies, private equity backed companies, venture backed companies, we need much greater focus on getting diverse points of view into the governance process earlier. And this is bringing more attention to that. So I think in, you know, in a small way, we've been able to use our platform to elevate the need to really think about this much more aggressively and hopefully it's having an impact. Yeah, I want to ask you a little bit about the market, as you know, as we all know, there's an election coming up. There's a lot of uncertainty when you combine that with the pandemic and everything else that we're dealing with. What do you see going forward? Where are you watching for the election? What kind of on your wish list for how we can help the economy recover? Well, I think we've got a I think we've got a challenging time in front of us. The this pandemic has had a profound economic impact And that economic impact has been in some ways, you know, muted a little bit with the monetary and fiscal policy that's been put in place, but that's not that's not infinite. And so I think as we looked at 2021 and 2022, it's going to take quite some time for us to rebuild the economic damage that has occurred. Um, and therefore, you know, I think we've got significant economic headwinds. I'm not a great prognosticator on markets. You know, I'm watching as you are, what's going on in equity markets. And I think, you know, equity markets are a little bit disconnected at the moment from the economic environment that we're in, but it's still a very uncertain time. It's very uncertain because of course of the virus is still uncertain. We will make progress to get the other side, but the human toe is very real and the economic consequences because of the pandemic and the shutdowns and the job loss, you know, those consequences are going to take quite some time for us to rebuild. So I, I think uncertain period uncertain because of the election uncertain obviously with the direction of the pandemic. Uh, and I think that leads to a more complicated economic picture for the next couple of years. We'll get through it. But I think we're gonna be a bumpy ride. Yeah, joining us later is jane fraser who will soon become your counterpart as the new ceo of city. As somebody who started in your job just two years ago. What advice would you give her? Well, I am James James terrific and I'm really excited for her. Uh, and I think she'll do a great job leading city. I think that um, these jobs are, are difficult and often you feel when you're in one of these Ceo positions, you know, isolated remote. One of the great piece of advice, you know, I got, um, as I came into the job was, you know, find a network of people outside your organization that you can really connect with, talk to, um, kind of a moat to as you're trying to figure out strategically where you want to go. And so I think that's, that's very, very important that you create a new network and the Ceo to keep yourself, you know, in dialogue learning all the time. And you know, also, I think it's very, very important to put your mark on the organization. You know, what are the one or two things that when you're done, you want in some way, shape or form for people to look back and say, hey, there was an impact that was made here. And so I think it's a great opportunity, right? When you start to kind of think about one of the one or two things I really want to drive or have an impact on. In addition, obviously the steward of the organization forward, but jane knows all that. I'm sure she's thinking about all those things. I know she's gonna do a fantastic job leading Citibank. Yeah, we're almost out of time. Um, but I know one thing that you've held onto during the pandemic is electronic music where you continue to produce and even perform, uh, on occasion is why is that so important to you? To keep doing well, as I've said to you before Jan, it's a hobby. I enjoy it. Um, it's something that takes me away from the intensity of Goldman Sachs and work and going on a sunday afternoon into a music studio, working on producing music. It's a diversion. And we all have diversions. We all need diversions. I think we all need to have other things in our lives to keep our lives, you know, rich and full while we're working very hard and staying focused. And this is something that helps me stay focused on golden sex, just getting away and spending a few hours on it. So, along with a number of other hobbies that I know you're aware of. I'm just gonna keep doing those things when I find the times and the opportunities to do well, power to you. Thank you so much for being here, David. Always a pleasure. Thank you. It's great to see you, jen it's great to be with everybody. Everybody stays safe and have a good conference