Goldman Sachs won’t take start-ups public without at least one ‘diverse’ director: David Solomon
Goldman Sachs has made an announcement in which its CEO, David Solomon has said that beginning this year, Goldman will no longer take companies public if they don’t have at least one “diverse” member on its board of directors.
“Starting on July 1st in the U.S. and Europe, we are not going to take a company public unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women,” Solomon said specifically.
Many will perhaps see the announcement as little more than marketing, as it is already widely viewed as unacceptable for a company to go public without at least one female board member and preferably far more “diversity” than that.
WeWork, for example, tried to go public last year with an all-male board, only to realize soon after that if it wanted to pursue an initial public offering, it had better mix it up a bit.
Airbnb, founded in 2008, on the other hand brought aboard its first female board member in 2018. A decade is a long time to go without any diversity on a board, but it’s also not a typical. Slack’s first female board member, Sarah Friar, joined the company in March 2017, roughly two years before the company - eight years old at the time - staged its direct listing last year.
More important to note with the two companies is what’s gone on at the employee level. Slack, for years, has made diversity core to its operations. Airbnb has also made gains in terms of employing a more diverse workforce.
If Goldman Sachs really wants to maintain its place in the banking hierarchy, a much bolder stance would be to only take public companies that have diverse workforces, which is far more important - and beneficial to all stakeholders - than adding a woman and/or person of colour to a board of directors as part of preparing an IPO.
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