Female Exec's Departure May Be Bad Sign for Goldman

A senior exec named Stephanie Cohen is leaving Goldman Sachs to work for the cloud-services provider Cloudflare, reports MarketWatch. But the otherwise ordinary-sounding executive shuffle announced Monday is only the latest example of a female partner deciding to leave Goldman, reports the Wall Street Journal. Cohen had been with the banking giant for 25 years and had moved up the ranks to be one of its most senior execs. However, her ability to rise further appeared to have been capped, and she had been on leave since June. A separate analysis in the Journal last week highlighted Cohen's story, along with similar ones involving execs Beth Hammack and Susie Schler.

"Advancing women into our most senior ranks is an area where we have not accomplished our goals," CEO David Solomon said in a statement to the newspaper. "Our longer term success depends significantly on developing female partners in senior roles." The analysis found that about two-thirds of the women who were partners at the end of 2018 at Goldman had left the firm, compared to about half of the male partners. No woman runs a major division at Goldman or appears to be on track as a candidate to succeed Solomon someday. He was expected to host a dinner with female partners on Monday to address the issue, according to the Journal. (More Goldman Sachs stories.)