Future bright for Goldman's chosen few

LAST Sunday a group of 12 shirt-sleeved executives locked themselves in a conference room at the UN Plaza Hotel in New York. They stayed there all day, sending out for refreshments. By dusk they had a list of names for whom selection meant a gilt-edged, multi-millionaire future.

The group was the executive committee of Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, and the brainstorming session was the culmination of a six- month process that, every two years, appoints the firm's new partners. Fifty-eight bright young things, including 11 in London, had just received the promotion of a lifetime. But what does it take to make it? Some qualities are obvious. Candidates must be bright and be high revenue earners for the firm. The committee looks for honesty and integrity, professional competence and leadership qualities. Above all, they must be 'the Goldman type'.

The 11 new London partners provide some clues. All are university educated, three have MBAs, none are women. Of the firm's 180 partners, only 10 are female. Most are promoted in their mid-to-late thirties and most have never worked anywhere else. They have been schooled in the firm's 14 guiding principles, which include dictums stating that the client comes first and that the firm comes before the individual.

As one former Goldman employee says: 'They are intelligent and shrewd. But by the time you get to partner, you are no longer a human being. Every thought you have is about the firm. You are Goldman Sachs.'

Another says: 'Goldman sounds slick, but actually it's very buttoned up.' Buttoned up is right. As with the IBM image, so with Goldman. Suits are conservative and well tailored. Navy and grey are preferred. Shirts tend to be white and ties, apart from on the more tolerant trading floor, are sober. Hair is short.

Some exceptional individuals break the mould. Mike Sherwood, the firm's 29- year- old head of debt syndication, left Goldman in January but came back within weeks. Normally, leaving would have ruled him out. But Mr Sherwood, known as 'Woody', was not only welcomed back to his old job but elevated to partner. 'I'm very happy. I thought I was a candidate but you can never be sure. It could have gone either way,' he says.

Eric M Mindich, a risk arbitrage specialist working in the firm's New York Office, is at 27 the youngest partner in the firm's 125-year history. Mr Mindich, who joined Goldman on an internship at 17 before attending Harvard, is described as 'an absolute bloody genius', by one colleague.

But the partnership regime is a tough grind of long hours and heavy responsibility. Not everyone wants it. A normal family life can prove elusive. 'The firm has a corrosive effect on relationships,' one former Goldman employee says.

For some young hopefuls, the chance to prove they are partnership material may never come. The firm began a round of redundancies on Friday.

(Photograph omitted)