Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of its US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, resigned this week from the top global investment firm after 12 years. In public fashion sure to create massive waves, Smith published his termination in the New York Times:
“I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it. To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money.”
In his resignation entitled “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs”, Smith reveals that he had seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets”, sometimes over internal e-mail over the past twelve months.
“I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.”