Goldman Sachs commits $25M to historically black schools
Asahi Pompey, Goldman Sachs Partner and Global Head of Corporate Engagement & President of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, joins Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers and Julia La Roche, to break down the company's diversity initiatives.
Video Transcript
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KRISTIN MYERS: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. Now all throughout this Black History Month, we here at Yahoo Finance have been highlighting stories of Black business owners, as well as initiatives for companies to impact racial inequality. So let's talk corporate diversity now. We're joined by Asahi Pompey, partner and global head of Corporate Engagement and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation.
Asahi, thank you so much for joining us today. You know, we talk about corporate diversity a lot. And I feel like for a lot of the commitments and all of the commitments that companies have made, that the needle hasn't moved too much. I'm wondering what so many of these initiatives are missing and how we can actually make progress in this area.
ASAHI POMPEY: You know, I think there are a number of things that we need to do to make progress in this area. I'd say-- highlight three things in particular. I think the first is the real importance of setting aspirational goals around hiring and recruiting, publishing those goals, and then meticulously holding ourselves accountable to delivering on those goals. And so, at Goldman Sachs, we've set one of our goals is to double the number of analyst hires from historically Black colleges and universities by the year 2025. We've said that publicly, and we're driving towards that.
Today, we announced a $25 million commitment. It's called HBCU Market Madness. But essentially, it's another way to move the needle in terms of getting Black talent. No longer just being recruiting from Harvard, but it's about Harvard and Howard. It's recruiting from Spelman and Smith. And this commitment is to drive the effort as it related to broadening our hiring.
KRISTIN MYERS: You know, Asahi, we were having some tech difficulties a little bit earlier. So I want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche now as well for this conversation. Julia, I know you also had a question here for Asahi.
JULIA LA ROCHE: That's right. Asahi, great to have you. And I know you all have an initiative that you also want to talk about, HBCUs, and how they fit in the broader context of Goldman really thinking about racial equity. Would love to kind of hear what you're doing there.
ASAHI POMPEY: Sure. Now, for generations, historically Black [AUDIO OUT] and universities have really been producing titans of industry, from Vice President Harris to Spike Lee to Keisha Lance Bottoms. The list really goes on. And so this program that we've launched, HBCU Market Madness, is really a $25 million commitment. It's a program where 125 students during year one will be able to come to Goldman Sachs and work with the head of investment banking, the head of sales and trading, the head of our research division on finance fundamentals.
I have to tell you, like, I didn't see myself as I could work in finance. I was a poli sci major. And I got my first break, really, at the end of my freshman year, working at a small investment bank, which would then lead me to working at Goldman Sachs. So it's really about getting students early, early access, as well as building them and giving them that network that they need that can really catalyze their future.
KRISTIN MYERS: Now HBCUs, we've long discussed, have been a really great pipeline for so many students in a lot of different fields. However, I'm wondering if your program has any plans to perhaps scale to other institutions. I know what you were talking about a little bit earlier, that these elite institutions tend to be the feeder schools to a company like Goldman Sachs. However, the majority of Black college students in the United States are enrolled at predominantly white institutions. Is there a plan to maybe bring some of those students more into the fold as well?
ASAHI POMPEY: Absolutely. We're broadening our recruiting more generally to be able to do that. And in particular, we want to ensure that we're getting Black talent, wherever that Black talent might be, to really diversify the face of Wall Street. My vision is that long after I've retired from Goldman Sachs, that we'll have a more diverse Goldman Sachs. We'll have a more diverse Wall Street generally.
The business case for diversity has been made time and time again. Diverse companies are more profitable. They make better decisions. And so, this is really sort of driving racial equity as it relates to our pipeline.
JULIA LA ROCHE: Asahi, you were mentioning earlier your own experience as a professional Black woman on Wall Street. And kind of going back to the program here and the curriculum that you all will be teaching over the course of four months, kind of take us a bit more inside that, and what are the longer term results you'd like to see from this pilot?
ASAHI POMPEY: You know, I have to say I'm greedy. I'd love all this Black talent to come from-- to come to Goldman Sachs. But ultimately, I'm also realistic. And I understand that a number of these students will come to Goldman and hopefully be part of our analyst program as they enter their third year. But also, they may go to other institutions as well and really sort of break barriers as it relates to finance. And so our vision is that we give them substantive training during this time period, that they come on board and become analysts and associates, or otherwise be credentialized to be able to get a well-paying job.
I can share with you-- when I graduated from college, I had $73,000 of debt. And I remember that number so well because it was more than my parents' combined annual income. And HBCUs disproportionately have low income students, first generation students, exactly the type of student that can really benefit from a career on Wall Street.
KRISTIN MYERS: I want to ask about, really, what companies should be doing-- and I know this initiative is focused at those college students-- but getting children even before they enroll in college, before they enroll in university, to make sure that a lot of these students are hitting some of those courses that are going to be needed in some of these careers later in life, you know, classes in mathematics, for example, to really well prepare them for what they are going to be doing in college, and then also as well for those internships and to get into that pipeline so that they can end up at a company like Goldman Sachs.
ASAHI POMPEY: You're really right, because a lot of it starts very early in schools. And so we have a program, our community teamworks program, where our Goldman Sachs employees volunteer. They work at elementary schools. They work at high schools. And part of that is really building that bridge.
You know, a lot of it is, we need to move from sort of symbols to seats, where Black talent gets a seat at the table. And that comes from, as you outlined, that early exposure that can happen in high school, in an elementary school, but also, as they get to their college years with a program like HBCU Market Madness.
KRISTIN MYERS: I absolutely love that, moving from symbols to seats, an absolutely critical and important thing that everyone should be thinking about as we move forward. Asahi Pompey, partner and global head of Corporate Engagement and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche, thank you both ladies for joining us for this very important conversation.
