Goldman Sachs’ Glass Ceiling Was About To Be Broken By Her. She Leaves Now

(CTN News) – Beth Hammack’s break into Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s all-male upper tier had been highly anticipated.

According to people familiar with the matter, she is leaving the Wall Street giant after 30 years. It was once widely believed that Hammack, 52, would become the bank’s next chief financial officer, one of the bank’s most senior positions.

Even on Wall Street, where most firms are dominated by men, Goldman Sachs lack of women at the top has been a sore point internally. A woman has never been appointed to the roles of chair, chief executive officer, president, or CFO at the company.

Goldman Sachs investment bank created two new committees last month to address that challenge. 25 executives were selected as emerging leaders, who would have a say in the running of the company’s trading and banking operations.

There were only three women selected, including Hammack, who most recently headed the global finance group as a co-head.

Goldman Sachs has pledged to promote more women into senior roles, and Hammack has been among a small group of women who kept making the list behind the scenes. She filled jobs that would have made her one of the bank’s most prominent Wall Street faces.

In 2021, she was passed over for the position of CFO and moved into her latest role running the financing unit. A bank executive explained the move as an attempt to help her gain more experience running a revenue-generating group so she could advance to more senior roles in the future.

During his summer internships at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Hammack grew up outside of Philadelphia. Venture capitalist Howard Morgan helped billionaire Jim Simons start Renaissance Technologies with his father. Her career at Goldman Sachs began when she joined its trading division in 1993.

Her responsibilities included agency bonds, rates and repo trading. Since 2010, her rise has been attributed to her ability to deal with regulators and government authorities. He also chaired the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, an influential Wall Street group that has the ear of the US Treasury secretary.

In 2018, her elevation to treasurer caused controversy within the bank. In its bid to diversify Goldman Sachs highest ranks, top executives differed on whether the trading unit could spare one of its rare senior women.

Hammack was moved to the banking group after Scherr’s departure in 2021, and the firm’s leadership instead selected Denis Coleman as the new finance chief.

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