Transcription
How did you become one of the youngest ever managing directors in the history of Goldman Sachs? At only, I think 27.
One day my then boss Guy Saidenberg came over on the trading floor, shook my hand and said, congratulations, you become your managing director.
Hmm. Of course the press loved it. If I look back, I think there were few things to probably help me. Now when that happens, you roll up your sleeves and you do it. Any LLM of your choice can give someone a nice market wrap. Yeah. There's no edge in that anymore. What you mentioned around intuition to me is like a really key skill. What do people frequently assume about working at Goldman Sachs? That just isn't true.
How did you become one of the youngest ever managing directors in the history of Goldman Sachs that only, I think 27 years old? Okay, so you're going straight there. Exactly. Look, you asked me a question about something that happened one other 15 years ago, so my memory is probably a bit hazy. Look, I started at Goldman Sachs as an intern. As an analyst. I've been a lifer there. Now, look, I was young, I was quite junior. I was quite oblivious to this whole nominations process that happens around these types of promotions. We call it a Goldman Sachs cross roughing. At the time, I didn't even know I was in the mix until one day my then boss Guy Saidenberg came over on the trading floor. Shook my hand and said, congratulations, you become your managing director. So there was never a plan. I was very fortunate though, to have that, you know, acceleration early in my career.
If I look back, I think there were a few things that probably helped me. I'd say number one, it's the culture of the place. Okay. As soon as I hit that trading floor as an intern, felt that intensity was quite addictive, right? But what I think was very true at Goldman Sachs then it has always been a place that is meritocratic. It's not about. How many gray hairs you have. It's not about who you know. It's been about what you bring. And that meant early on in my career, I could speak up, I could express opinions. I had access to some of the very senior partners and the people like Ashok Varadhan, who I still work with to this day. I knew as an analyst and I felt empowered to be able to talk to him and tell him what I thought about the business or markets. And that helped me, of course, add value to the business, but get noticed and that helps. At a place like Goldman Sachs look, I'd say secondly.
Just really having access to some phenomenal people at the start of my career. So my first boss was a legend, Driss Ben Brahim. He hired me when I was an intern. I joined him as a trader on the rates desk at the time. But very early on, he then took over what became our global macro proprietary trading group, and it was this mythical group of prop traders. Now this is obviously a different world pre-financial crisis, but Driss took me under his wing. He really invested time teaching me. And he had views and ideas across every different asset class imaginable. But he gave me a book. He gave me control of what he was thinking and doing, and that really helped me learn a lot early on, and this wasn't your typical junior trader job because I was sitting there with a bunch of guys who were all in their forties and fifties. It was in some ways the ultimate retirement gig. But I was lucky to be there as an analyst and he really helped me. And look, I only worked with him in reality for four years out of my now 22 odd years at Goldman Sachs, but it was very formative. And he's still like a big brother mentor to me now.
And then I'd say the third thing that helped with that career progression early on were just some choices I made and some risks I took earlier in my career. You know, as I mentioned, I ended up on a great desk early on. I was having fun. I was there on that prop desk from 2004 to 2007. But it was around that time when the firm was really thinking through, should we build a business in emerging markets? And from a fixed income context across the region in London, there wasn't much left in that space after the Russia default in the late nineties. But a few key people building that business up. And there was a point in 2007 where they asked me, look, do you wanna take this jump over to join the franchise side of the business of Goldman Sachs? Not just on the proprietary side. Pretty much everyone I asked at the time said, why would you do that? You've already got this great gig. But I could have had this itch to actually join the business and not just be in this risk-taking market focus group that sat on the corner and look hit the ground running in 07. We had some ups and downs over the financial crisis, but three years later, in 2010, you know, we started to really build up a strong presence in emerging markets. And I think that's what ultimately really helped me, you know, reach that MD title quite earlier.
And did you notice any change kind of before and after? Receiving that. Was there a note or was it just another day? The day after was just another day. Look, for me, it was a surprise. I just kept my head down and kept working. Hmm. Of course the press loved it. I read the articles. There were a few of them. I tried to avoid all of that and stay low key and just focus on, you know, learning, growing the business and look for me. Of course, it's nice to get that recognition, but again, what really sets you up to continue on that path? Is what you keep bringing day to day in the business there. Yeah.
What does a co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International do on a daily basis? How do you really allocate or decide to allocate your time? So I stepped into that role just over a year ago, alongside me, my co-CEOs, Anthony Gottman. Now together, both of us also still have global divisional jobs, so I'm also still a global head of our fixed income business. Anthony's a global head of our investment banking business, but together. Look, firstly, we are responsible for GSI, which is our global broker dealer, which is really responsible for a lot of our international markets activities, things like wealth management, but functionally sitting here in London. The two of us together are really driving the firm across the region. If I think about the EMEA region, we have almost 10,000 people operating around 29 different offices. So two of us are spending our time really thinking through our strategy for the broad business in this time zone. So we're thinking through our global banking and markets business, our asset wealth management business, and how we can really position ourself to stay. We hope the preeminent financial services firm and keep growing also in a way that, you know, has one eye on growth, but also on the risk we're running and the controls around that. And to do that successfully. We also spend a lot of time really thinking about our culture and our people, right? Making sure that we have the best talent, making sure we're empowering them to also help drive us forward. And look, it pulls us in many different directions. So when we then balance that with our divisional jobs, where, look, markets are fixed income, they've always been in my blood since I started at Goldman Sachs. So look, we get pulled in various different directions. One of the key things is then how I manage my time. I wouldn't say that I have to think too much about which hat I'm, there's a lot of synergy between those two different roles. But we have to really think consciously about where we're present, where we're spending time, how we stay commercial. But of course, you know when I got your nice invite to join this podcast, how could I say no, I didn't pay you to say that either.
If you could share anything more about your clients, the type of institutions you serve, and also what you are hearing from them at present. So my traditional client base will really the institutions on the market side, the hedge funds, the real money funds, more so now in my other role, I'm getting to know all the corporates. Yeah, all of our asset management clients. Also some of our ultra high net worth clients. So it's a broad mix. If I think about even the past 24 hours, yesterday was dinner with a credit hedge fund, CIO this morning was a couple of hundred commodity investors around their International Energy week. Tonight's dinner at the house of what could become a very significant IPO prospect. So it's a broad range of clients. I think the themes though, there's a lot of commonality. Yeah. Okay. No doubt right now, a lot of discussion around geopolitics. Mm-hmm. It's a changing new world order and what the people thinking through that in the lens of the markets and how to react to these constant headlines, be grappling with or strategically for our investors or corporate client base, how they should navigate these shifting wins. That always comes up. The second thing is then just given the economic cycle, all of the stimulus from. The monetary policy side. The fiscal policy side, there's huge amount of liquidity in markets. But at a time when strong fundamentals are there across the time zones, market valuations are high. So a lot of discussion around actually where that marginal dollar should go. And then linked to that, just given some pockets of froth, what are the risks? What can turn these markets around? What are the blind spots they should be looking at? And that always then evolves into debate around. Financial assets versus non fiat markets. Crypto's not really working right now. Should they have more gold? It's hard to sit in a meeting, but that doesn't come up. And then of course, AI and technology, both from a market angle, but also how do we all embrace it? Yeah.
I, that's an interesting one. I mean, I'm sure you, we hear this all the time in terms of kind of the risks from AI where, I mean, what kind of things are you, you being asked at these kind of, these dinners or these events around ai? Is it always the same type of question or is it kind of diverse? There's always a similar question linked to what's happening in markets and how much of the CapEx, for example, that we're seeing in the us. Mm-hmm. And we naturally have a lens as Goldman Sachs, given our role on the financing side of some of these deals, how sustainable is it? Who the winners and losers will be. And that can always be a healthy debate. Yeah. But I'd say what becomes more interesting than becomes a discussion of what are we, as Goldman Sachs actually doing with this technology and the applications that we are finding now. We're very focused on it. Of course. It's an early day in this experimentation for all of us. But if we look forward now at some of the things that we have been investing, we're starting to really see some practical applications we're excited about. So, you know, we love just sharing some of those thoughts.
That's interesting. So you're using them kind of internally. Do you have like a, a tool you're building? I mean most companies do, but do, how are you kind of exploring that? So we have what we call the GS AI assistant. That's now been rolled out across the entire firm, and that really brings in some of the cutting edge LLM models in a compliant way within our own firewalls and controls. And that now just allows a low level experimentation across the entire firm, and we have to allow our people to experiment because we can't dictate everything top down. We need our people, especially those that are very tech savvy outside of the office, to come in and just find different ways of making their own jobs more productive or more efficient.
When it comes to something that isn't ai when it comes to building, you know, human relationships, whether that's with the clients or or otherwise, internally. What are some of the most important skills or traits you think you need to be successful? So I think there's some common themes, whether it's my teams and colleagues internally, or if it's clients. I think for me a very important one is being seen as someone that is trusted, transparent, and fair. And I think within the building of Goldman Sachs, it becomes increasingly important the more senior you become. 'cause you wanna make sure you're still approachable and people are coming to you actually soliciting your view. And crucially actually giving you information unfiltered. And you're not just getting the sanitized version because you wanna really keep an ear to the ground of what clients want, what the risks in the business are, what the opportunities are, and not just get the sanitized version. So I think you have to have an approach where people trust that what they tell you will get listened to. Whether you agree or disagree. You can have an active debate, but you have to stay someone that's seen as fair. And I'd say the same set of skills are important on the outside. When I think about the relationships we build with that broad mix of clients we talked about. Particularly in our markets business, we made a really conscious pivot to become extremely client-centric in recent years. To build up that long-term partnership, you have to be seen as a trusted advisor that they wanna come to when they need that guidance and that they feel that they can open up to you. So I think that's important.
I'd say the second thing when it comes to relationships is you have to lead with content. You need to be bringing something that is differentiated. Now going back to your AI point, we're in a world where access to information is democratized. Any LLM of your choice can give someone a nice market wrap. Yeah. There's no edge in that anymore, so you have to come with some unique insights, which for us can be anything from what we see through our lens across global markets and the deal flow or the flows and volumes that we're picking up in certain markets, but also to just the relationships we have and the conversations we may be in. That gives us more than just what may be there in those LMS and those models. So keep bringing Alpha, that's why people will come to you. That's why I hope my teams internally may still listen to me because they think I've got something to say. They should still hear out and our clients come to us when they really want guidance on whether it is the geopolitics or the uncertainty in markets. 'cause they think we're gonna say something that's differentiated. Yeah.
So to what extent are credit ratings from S&P important for, you know, sovereign or corporate entities? To really successfully access this international capital market? That's a good question. Look, when we think about capital markets, lemme talk about public markets 'cause that's a place where credit ratings are prerequisite and we can have a intellectual discussion around, do the credit agencies lead or lag markets, and which one of the big three is the one that leads the others. But look, as I've seen through my lens, particularly for the years when I was running my emerging markets business. Credit ratings have just been a fundamental prerequisite to tap international capital. And I think beyond just the reach it has in terms of bond issuance, it's also what I've seen it does at a sovereign level. So I'll give you an example. Take South Africa, it was a market that I traded for many years. There was a very active debate about sovereign ratings when it was starting to get downgraded from investment grade to sub investment grade. I think it was around 2017 when S&P actually downgraded them first, and there was a multi-year period where the question was. Would the other main rating agencies follow and would, does composite rating become sub investment grade and if so, the passive benchmark indices, like the WBE would lead to bond outflows. So sure. Our clients from the institutional side cared. What I found very interesting though, were the dialogues I would have with the then finance minister and also the president who would ask me about the impact to the rating agencies on their economy. And you could see that actually this external check and balance also fed through to their own policy when they thought about the fiscus. Now, ultimately those downgrades happened. It was a pandemic, which I think was the last straw on that. But we're now at a point where that's an economy that's turning around, and I think the ratings outlook is now positive and there's a path to regaining it back. So that was a perspective where I think the ratings were important, all sort of policy level on the ground in some of these countries. Look, there are similar analogies when you think about Southern Europe. We all lived through that European financial crisis. You've now really seen a resurgence of the likes of Greece, Portugal, Italy, which are really outpacing from growth side. They've been on upwards ratings trajectory, their spreads have been compressing or inside of the so-called historic, high rated core European countries, and that's a place I think the market is rewarding. Again, that ratings trajectory improving. And the third example I'll give you is just a sheer scale of capital that can come when this works. There, I think from a sovereign perspective, the biggest one has really been the issuance coming from the Middle East of the past decade. Now, I was there a decade ago around that first KSA sovereign issuance when they came out with the high rating and started tapping again, international sovereign markets. It flew and it flew of course, because of the high rating, but because it started being compared not just to the typical emerging market issuers, but also the broad G 20 issuers. But then given the rating, people looking at that and saying, here's long duration in a high rated sovereign that's actually rated in line with some of these US tech companies, and I'm getting paid more. And I mean the books were much broader and more diversified. The rating definitely helped that, and we led the KSA deals and they came with the quasi sovereigns, the PIF Aramco, the Saudi banks. We're now talking about tens of billions of issuance. I think the ratings really helped catalyze. Yeah, very interesting.
Would you be able to give an insiders view of maybe a typical day in the life on an EM trading desk at Goldman Sachs? Good question. Now, the good thing is there is no such thing as a typical day. And I think that's what's really kept me energized and motivated, you know, a couple of decades on. But the things though, which are always true, first thing, pick up your phone check do in, check your dollar, check S&P futures, right? Just get a pass on what happened while you were trying to sleep. Of course, when you get on the trading desk, you're catching up with what happened overnight In Asia, that can be the rambi fix. If you wanna see what's the time for currency markets right now, it's look at the Japanese market. What's up, the JDB and the Nikkei, but there's always something that's happening in Asia time zone that can tell you maybe what's next to come in terms of client activity or risks through the EMEA session. I think the rest of the day it can be fluid, and I think it's also quite varied depending on what type of trader you are. Within a broad business like that, you know, we've got some traders with trading with a very systematic lens. Mm-hmm. They're dealing with order flow from clients that are coming through automated electronic channels. So for them that they can really be deep technical research. They're coding, they're tweaking algorithms. You've got others that we call the high touch traders, dealing with our clients where they are on chat or they're calling clients, sharing views, pricing, block liquidity, and the rest is then managing positions, keeping on top of the news flow, the benefit being in emerging markets. There's always a story, could be a headline, could be a crisis, but just being in that kind of environment, access to experts across the space, whether it's our strategists, our research teams, and just seeing those teams in action. Has always been fun, but it's varied. Yeah.
I mean it's, it is a, I always think it's very interesting to get kind of inside the head of a trader to understand more about the, kind of the psychological impact. I mean, I interviewed, uh, Andrew Balls, uh, a month ago, the Chief Investment Officer at PIMCO, and I, I said, um, on fixed income particularly, and I, we talked about this and I said, you know, in terms of sleepless nights, Yep. And stress, how, how's this kind of impacted you? Has that. Is that a feature? When you're a trader? Are you kind of always thinking about the morning or next positions, how you can react? Is that part of the game I guess? So I was actually with Andrew on Monday, so he's a good guy. Talk about this with what I would say, every single trader investor, including all my teams and people I've worked with, there is no cookie cutter model. Everyone approaches this differently though. Some of my teams and colleagues that are up multiple times a night. Checking their orders, checking markets. I've got others that sleep like a baby. Right. You know, for me personally, to keep the resilience to do this couple of decades in and to have that hunger every day to get at it, I do need to make sure I sleep well. And obviously we're all obsessed about tracking these things now with our apps. So I can tell you firsthand, I've got no trouble sleeping at night. I've got my own. There you go. But the way I can do that is by really making sure I've got a great team that is up through the night, particularly those that are. Trading, you know, the late session in the US or through early Asia hours, they can watch out for what's significant. So I know that it's in good hands. Mm. I don't need to worry about it when I'm asleep. Typically, I can't change it anyway if I'm there. And it's very rare that there's something that's significant enough to have to do something in the middle of the night. Now when that happens, you roll up your sleeves and you do it. So Absolutely. When it was the Brexit night or the US elections mm-hmm. Jumped in the car and I was in the office at 1:00 AM Okay. But, you know, these are things that hopefully don't happen too frequently, but it's important to look after yourself because to do this and to be focused day in, day out, you know, I think sleep is a very important part of that recovery. Yeah.
You've got graduates coming into Goldman Sachs, knocking in the door, I'm guessing, uh, frequently. Trying, trying to break into, particularly on the trading site, is there something that's hard to teach? A young trader that's difficult to learn just from a model or from a screen? Is that kind of a intuition? So look, we get a fantastic crop of junior talent coming to the firm, and it's an increasingly broad range of profiles that we get from a growing list of schools. But most of 'em come with academic excellence from what they've done over the years. And of course, we always look out for others who may excel, whether it's sports or other types of activities, but what you never really know is how they may perform. In a trading desk, right? And their just ability to think clearly, react under pressure, keep a level head. What you mentioned around intuition to me is like a really key skill. And of course you can look at someone's CV and see that they've got excellence, but really looking at that book smarts and that intuition is I think something that you can only really see in terms of how someone behaves. And in an environment like a training floor, that's different to maybe sitting there. You know, in a school or university, because that's why for us, we really like to have our talent spend time with us. You know, my own way of getting integrated with the firm was a 10 week internship where I could really get tested out and people could see not just what I knew about how I react to that next bit of information. And intuitively, what's my play? They're asking me brain tease back then. So brain tease don't work because everyone now knows the answer or no one is gonna tell them it. To test it, how many tennis balls can you fit in a Boeing seven fourty seven. There are all these classics. Okay. But we have to keep innovating in terms of how we test that new crop of talent on that intuition. But I think that is a key one. Look at then alongside that comes that resilience that I mentioned, and also the grit, right? Because there's always gonna be ups and downs in testing times, right? But you want someone that can really persevere, grow the business, be there for our clients, and keep a level ahead in the managing risk. It's interesting, I've heard a couple of hedge funds who are starting to look at, graduates who come from a more arts background. Yeah. Um, kind of, kind of future proof. So did studies, drama, et cetera, which is, you know, when I was coming through, would've, would've never been an option. But it's interesting to see how there's like kind of diversity of your skills and your background is now almost embraced, um, in, in the modern kind of graduate, uh, intake. Absolutely. I think historically people would say an economics or STEM background lends itself to finance. Look, there's important skills, but we really do try and think expansively. I was a mathematician. My wife's a classist. We have lots of debates around what's the right education for our kids. Look, it's a rapidly evolving world, right? But you know, I do think it's something to think through the education of the next generation of talent. It's gonna have to change and keep base with all of this.
What do people frequently assume about working at Goldman Sachs? That just isn't true. Good question. I should probably ask you what you assume, but I'd say, look, from my side. Goldman Sachs has a reputation for excellence. Okay? That's something that's always been there. It's in one of our core values and we have a lot of highly motivated, driven people. So there's almost an assumption often that people are gonna be aggressive and really trying to fight to be number one. And I think for me, one of those key things that I mentioned when I referenced culture earlier were just how collegiate the place is. Every company talks about teamwork for Goldman Sachs. I really feel it. And I think some of this really comes down to the legacy of what we were, which was a private partnership. And that's been over 26 years since we've been a public company. But we've really fought hard to keep that collective partnership culture in what is now a much larger global firm. Look. I'm also one of the co-chairs of our partnership committee, so I'm very hands on with how we think through that culture piece. But I think that shared ownership of the senior levels of the firm, that interconnected. Nature across our different offices and businesses just means that our approach, whilst everyone is focused on how to remain at the front, it's done in a very team oriented way. We have our committees, we have our processes. We keep nimble, but we also gain a consensus, and I see it through my own roles over the years. In my global thick role, I've got two co-heads in my GS international role. I've got a co, CEO. Almost all of our leadership positions are done collectively. And that's something which often people on the outside don't naturally assume.
Can you talk a bit about Empower? So what's the goal of this organization and also what are you doing within it? So Empower is an emerging markets foundation. I've been involved in it for quite some years. It's been going now for 25 years. It was set up by people like me that had actually come from the finance industry having traded or invested in emerging markets, and it was their way of giving back. Now the way Empower works is it operates in 15 different countries across the emerging world, and it tries to identify grantee partners on the ground in communities that can really help with the livelihoods of young people. My own involvement was through, some friends and colleagues that were involved invited me to dinner. I went, heard about it. It resonated. For me, part of that was because my own roots, okay, my parents grew up in East Africa. My heritage is Indian. So despite the fact I was born in bred London, there was always a desire to try and give back to where my ancestors came from. And also having traded emerging markets for many years, there was also a desire to give back. So this was a fit, and it was great to actually see my peers in the industry. My clients also involved, so I got more involved. I joined the board. There was in a period just at the start of 2020 where they asked me to become the chair of the board here in the uk. Then the pandemic hit. So we had some fun few years really trying to help steer the organization through that time and pivot from those large gala dinners to ways of raising funds through these virtual channels, but also to help our grantee partners at a time of need, given all the stresses, particularly the emerging world. For me, it's been a fantastic way of actually doing something constructive with my colleagues in the industry. It's now a large global organization. Last year I became the chair of our leadership council. So it's one that I'm passionate about. You know, it's one where I support myself personally. It's got a fantastic team and they really have impact. I think now over 25 years, they've affected their lives of over 1.1 million young people. So it's been a real passion of mine.
Fantastic. So a couple more questions may be a bit easier. So what are your favorite finance TV shows or, or movies? We've got industry, everyone seems to talk to me about industry recently. Mm. But then we've got the old school ones like Wall Street or Billions. Or is it just something else entirely? Or do you not watch this kind of stuff because it's your job? Look, when I was young growing up, of course I watched Wall Street. I watched the Boiler room. Okay. I didn't know much about finance. That was a glimpse into it. So of course it piqued your interest. I haven't re-watched them. I probably should. Let's see if I still think whether they're good or they're not. Look as for industry, I've seen it. I'm watching. I'm still working my way through the new series. Of course, you can see elements that reflect part of the reality of actually what we do in this industry. And then there's a whole lot that is totally dramatized, and I think increasingly so as they keep trying to get one more season with a lot of typical cliches. Mainly the British Indian fixed income trader. Right. So that's probably where I think the similarities end. Right. So I think it's a bit of lighthearted viewing. Definitely not a fair, balanced reflection, I think of actually what happens. Yeah, totally.
Finally, if we imagine a world, you know, without finance, without Goldman Sachs, god forbid, what would your, you know, your dream pursuit or your dream career be in, you know, an alternative life? That's a good question. It's not one where I've ever had a great answer. I stumbled into this career, but I found that calling. So I hope I don't have to think about the alternative. If I look what my path could have been. Look, my parents were immigrants to this country and with that typical mentality, my mom wanted me to be a doctor. Mm. I have a lot of respect for that profession. It's very noble and honorable. I don't think it was one for me. My dad wanted me to go into, at the time what he called IT now, one of my side hustles when I was young was. Helping internet companies, and I was coding websites, and this was really into that peak of that.com boom. But I didn't go that route, right? I went and I studied maths, not computer science, and then ultimately found finance. Now, I felt good about that when the.com crash happened, and obviously that space was a bit more challenged, and now I look at that tech space and think, yeah, maybe that was a good alternative where I could have actually gone deeper in that space. Look, otherwise, I think it would've to be something totally left field and different. You know, I spent quite a few years and my friends know quite deep in a property renovation that just cascaded outta control. But spending time looking at those architects drawings and trying to micromanage parts of that project. I put up, you know, even maybe architecture could have been something that, uh, that I'd like to apply myself to. But you know, I'm very happy that I am, uh, in finance, unfortunately. I know the exact feeling you're talking about because I've done a couple in my time as well. But anyway, canal shut. Um, thank you so much for your time and thanks for joining us today. Joy's been a pleasure. Ooh.