The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) hosted its Brokering Change: A Wall Street Multicultural Women’s Exchange conference last week. The conference aimed to enhance the professional experience of multicultural women by focusing on key issues related to their commercial and professional development, while providing a platform to facilitate relationship building and networking across the industry.

The conference kicked-off with welcome remarks by Edith Cooper, Goldman Sachs Managing Director and Head of Human Capital Management, and a keynote address by Abby Joseph Cohen, President of Global Markets Institute and Senior Investment Strategist at Goldman Sachs, followed by various interactive breakout sessions covering topics from emerging economies to career development. “Perspectives from the Top,” was the closing panel discussion led by multicultural Wall Street trailblazers, who gave their opinions, outlooks and experiences in the business. At the evening reception, attendees had an opportunity to network with other women from across the industry.

In November 2007, Goldman Sachs’ Office of Global Leadership and Diversity (GLD) launched its inaugural Brokering Change event by hosting a two-hour workshop. The event provided an opportunity for multicultural women across financial services to discuss key issues related to their commercial and professional development as well as to bring a forum for multicultural women to network across the industry. Due to the positive feedback from the first event, the firm held its second workshop in February 2008 and decided to expand the two-hour workshop series to a half-day conference. The conference drew close to 300 attendees from various investment banks and financial institutions.

Feedback from the speakers and participants has been extraordinarily positive. Dr. Ella Bell an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Tuck School of Business and President of conference collaborating partner ASCENT, Leading Multicultural Women to the Top said, “The conference says a lot about the firm. Goldman Sachs walks the talk.”

"Brokering Change - A Wall Street Multicultural Women's Exchange - was a powerful and dynamic educational forum that specifically afforded multicultural women from the private, public and non-profit sectors the opportunity to network, dialogue and learn from each other and from industry leaders.