Goldman Sachs executive says male colleagues ‘mooed’ at her when she used lactation room

A former Goldman Sachs employee has written a memoir which details her stint at a high-paying Wall Street job and how she was forced to quit because of a culture of overt sexism and bullying.

Jamie Fiore Higgins, 46, who worked at the investment banking firm for 17 years, was allegedly “mooed” at by her male colleagues when she used a lactation room at her office after the birth of her second child.

In her 320-page memoir titled Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs, which she started writing after quitting the company in 2016, Ms Higgins also alleged her male colleagues pretended to “squeeze their breasts” as she made her way to the lactation centre.

One day, she returned from the room to find a toy cow on her desk.

Ms Higgins, who worked for nearly two decades at the firm, said she faced discrimination from colleagues as well. One of her bosses said she would never reach the managing director if “she was pumping milk instead of working,” according to her memoir.

Ms Higgins said the targeted remarks stopped her from using the office’s lactation room. Because the company offered lavish bonuses, she “kept her mouth shut” and continued working, Ms Higgins told The Financial Times.

She said she finally quit when her career began to tank after complaining about a male colleague who went unpunished after reportedly shouting racial slurs at a bar worker on a “night out with clients”.

Since word about her book started spreading, she has received “probably over 100” messages from women across industries with similar experiences.

However, she said most employees don’t speak up due to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), a practice MeToo movement and anti-bullying activists want to end.

“I’ve gotten so many messages on my various social accounts from people saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my book, I can’t write it because of my NDA’,” she said.

Ms Higgins reportedly thought of suing the company, but once a lawyer explained the risks, she chalked up a “spreadsheet of freedom” to calculate the moment “she would have enough financial security to quit”.

“It’s kind of rare for people to just walk away with the intention of never working on Wall Street again.”

She added that seven years later, the culture at the firm may have changed and it was “probably not as bad as it once was”.

Goldman Sachs, in a statement to the publication, “strongly disagreed” with Ms Higgins’s “anonymised allegations” and description of work culture at the firm.

“Had Ms Higgins raised these allegations with our human resources department at the time we would have investigated them thoroughly and addressed them seriously,” the firm said.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination or retaliation against employees reporting misconduct,” it added.