It's a titan of Wall Street and the City, but does Goldman Sachs have a women problem?

HAS Goldman Sachs got a women problem? Is it still, in the face of all changing fashion, a macho world of golfing bros who cut deals over late-night sambucas in ways that make it very difficult for women, especially those with families, to get ahead?

- Simon English

There is evidence, and a growing anecdotal feeling, that the famously demanding Wall Street investment bank simply cannot change its ways - or hang on to top female bankers for that very reason.

The latest Government data shows Goldman at the top or bottom depending on your perspective - of the banking pay gap league table. Of the major City banks, it has had the biggest average gap between what men and women are paid in each of the past three years.

In 2023, Goldman Sachs men got 54 per cent more than its women, according to the data, a seemingly yawning and completely unjustifiable differential.

One feeling is that chairman and CEO David Solomon - DJ D Sol at the weekends is under such pressure from shareholders over other more harder-edged and immediate issues that long-term goals like closing the gender pay gap are the last thing on his mind.

There is no denying that a number of top women have headed for the exit. They include, but are far from limited to, Stephanie Cohen, the bank's global head of its platform solutions division and former chief strategy officer, who quit last month after 25 years to join IT service provider Cloudflare; and Beth Hammack, ex-cohead of the Global Financing Group and its most senior female trader, who left in February after 30 years with no immediate job to go to.

It is said that it was during an extended period of family leave from Goldman last year that Cohen decided she wanted to rebalance her life and move to a job where she could spend more time with her children.