Our Purpose and Values

Our Purpose

We aspire to be the world’s most exceptional financial institution, united by our shared values of client service, excellence, partnership, and integrity.

Drawing on over 150 years of experience working with the world’s leading businesses, entrepreneurs, and institutions, we mobilize our people, culture, technologies, and ideas to advance the success of our clients, broaden individual prosperity, and accelerate economic progress for all.

Our purpose comes to life through our four core values:
Client Service, Excellence, Partnership, and Integrity.
 

Our Values

Client Service
We lead with a service mindset, working to earn our clients’ trust and exceed their expectations by understanding and overdelivering on their goals.

Excellence
We aspire to nothing less than excellence, striving for exceptional performance and superior results for our clients, our shareholders, and our communities.

Partnership
We prioritize collaboration and believe in the strength of the collective, creating a culture that fosters teamwork and belonging in the pursuit of professional and personal growth.

Integrity
We hold ourselves accountable to the highest ethical standards, insisting on transparency and vigilance from our people as we learn from our experiences and make decisions that instill a sense of pride in our firm.

  

Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics

Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics explains how we live out our core values and underscores our collective responsibility in upholding the highest standards of conduct at all times.
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Goldman Sachs Business Principles

Our clients’ interests always come first.

Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow.

Our assets are our people, capital and reputation.

If any of these is ever diminished, the last is the most difficult to restore. We are dedicated to complying fully with the letter and spirit of the laws, rules and ethical principles that govern us. Our continued success depends upon unswerving adherence to this standard.

Our goal is to provide superior returns to our shareholders.

Profitability is critical to achieving superior returns, building our capital, and attracting and keeping our best people. Significant employee stock ownership aligns the interests of our employees and our shareholders.

We take great pride in the professional quality of our work.

We have an uncompromising determination to achieve excellence in everything we undertake. Though we may be involved in a wide variety and heavy volume of activity, we would, if it came to a choice, rather be best than biggest.

We stress creativity and imagination in everything we do.

While recognizing that the old way may still be the best way, we constantly strive to find a better solution to a client’s problems. We pride ourselves on having pioneered many of the practices and techniques that have become standard in the industry.

We make an unusual effort to identify and recruit the very best person for every job.

Although our activities are measured in billions of dollars, we select our people one by one. In a service business, we know that without the best people, we cannot be the best firm

We offer our people the opportunity to move ahead more rapidly than is possible at most other places.

Advancement depends on merit and we have yet to find the limits to the responsibility our best people are able to assume. For us to be successful, our people must reflect the diversity of the communities and cultures in which we operate. That means we must attract, retain and motivate people from many backgrounds and perspectives. Being diverse is not optional; it is what we must be.

We stress teamwork in everything we do.

While individual creativity is always encouraged, we have found that team effort often produces the best results. We have no room for those who put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the firm and its clients.

The dedication of our people to the firm and the intense effort they give their jobs are greater than one finds in most other organizations.

We think that this is an important part of our success.

We consider our size an asset that we try hard to preserve.

We want to be big enough to undertake the largest project that any of our clients could contemplate, yet small enough to maintain the loyalty, the intimacy and the esprit de corps that we all treasure and that contribute greatly to our success.

We constantly strive to anticipate the rapidly changing needs of our clients and to develop new services to meet those needs.

We know that the world of finance will not stand still and that complacency can lead to extinction.

We regularly receive confidential information as part of our normal client relationships.

To breach a confidence or to use confidential information improperly or carelessly would be unthinkable.

Our business is highly competitive, and we aggressively seek to expand our client relationships.

However, we must always be fair competitors and must never denigrate other firms.

Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.

We expect our people to maintain high ethical standards in everything they do, both in their work for the firm and in their personal lives.

 

Business Standards

Business Standards Committee Report
We created our Business Standards Committee in 2010 to conduct an extensive review of our business standards and practices. This eight-month review encompassed every major business, region and activity of the firm.

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Business Standards Committee Impact Report
In May 2010, we created our Business Standards Committee (BSC) to conduct an extensive review of our business standards and practices. After reviewing every major business, region and activity of the firm, the BSC published a report in January 2011 that included 39 recommendations. In May 2013, the Business Standards Committee released the BSC Impact Report to explain the changes it made and how they impacted the firm.

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Alumni Network

Explore our community of former Goldman Sachs employees from every region and office around the world.