Kene Ejikeme, ex-Professional Rugby Player and Goldman Sachs Managing Director, Head of Multi Asset Platform Sales EMEA, shares his thoughts on everything from finding your career, why athletes are a good fit in finance, the importance of diversity and much more!
Kene's story is a fantastic insight into pursuing your passions and taking risks. Kene initially grew up with aspirations of entering a career in civil engineering before finding motivation for the sport of Rugby and finally finding his feet in Sales & Trading at Goldman Sachs. His ambitions to pivot into new areas provided a catalyst of learning and development, aspects that Kene notes as contributive to his career at Goldman Sachs.
In this episode, Kene is joined by Work in Fintech co-founder Matthew Cheung and founding member Amrit Khatkar to explain how to land a role of Goldman Sachs, why Fintech is the future and the differences between Rugby and Sales & Trading.
Check out our website: https://workinfintech.com/ and subscribe to our mailing list to hear more about opportunities in fintech and web3
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Kene Ejikeme, ex-Professional Rugby Player and Goldman Sachs Managing Director, Head of Multi Asset Platform Sales EMEA, shares his thoughts on everything from finding your career, why athletes are a good fit in finance, the importance of diversity and much more!
Kene's story is a fantastic insight into pursuing your passions and taking risks. Kene initially grew up with aspirations of entering a career in civil engineering before finding motivation for the sport of Rugby and finally finding his feet in Sales & Trading at Goldman Sachs. His ambitions to pivot into new areas provided a catalyst of learning and development, aspects that Kene notes as contributive to his career at Goldman Sachs.
In this episode, Kene is joined by Work in Fintech co-founder Matthew Cheung and founding member Amrit Khatkar to explain how to land a role of Goldman Sachs, why Fintech is the future and the differences between Rugby and Sales & Trading.
Check out our website: https://workinfintech.com/ and subscribe to our mailing list to hear more about opportunities in fintech and web3
Follow our socials:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/work-in-fintech-global/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WorkinFintech
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdS4bYoCXaHVgfVm6syUrDw
Matthew Cheung 0:04
This is Matt from Work in Fintech and today we're delighted to speak to Kene, Ejikeme a managing director at Goldman Sachs looking after multi asset sales. He's going to be interviewed today by Amrit Khatkar, who's just finishing up his master's of computer science, the University of Birmingham. Over to you.
Amrit Khatkar 0:22
Thanks, Matt. Thanks for joining us a Kenny, could you give a brief introduction to yourself, your your journey and your current role?
Kene Ejikeme 0:28
First of all, thanks. Thanks both of you for for for having me on the podcast. As as Matt mentioned, my name is Kene Ejikeme. I've been a Goldman 17 years I'm Nigerian. I was born in Nigeria. And I lived and studied down until secondary school, I went to secondary school called federal government college in Protocors, which is where I was born in the southern part of Nigeria. And I came over to the UK went to a school called the oratory school in Berkshire. And from there, I left and went to study civil engineering and masters in civil engineering at Imperial College. While I was at Imperial College, I played professional rugby, at relatively high standard. And from there, I ended up here at Goldman, I interned in 2003. which seems like a very long time ago, because it was a very long time ago. And I started in 2004, in our equity derivatives listed sales team here in EMEA. And I've had various roles within the equity business here over the years and as Matt mentioned, I'm now looking after our multi asset platform sales team here at Emea.
Unknown Speaker 1:36
Yeah, and I think, you know, looking at your your journey, and how you got to current position in sales and trading, I think what's really interesting is the different journeys and paths you took to find the role that suited you. And you said that you studied civil engineering, and I think you did some engineering internships, I believe, or you gained some experience in that field. You pursued rugby for for a short period as well. How did you end up in sales and trading? And how did you embark on the path? How did you sort of figure out that self trading was the one for you over the others?
Unknown Speaker 2:06
Yeah, I mean, I think like any other 18 year old, you know, I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do. I just, you know, I think, you know, I liked sport, I seem to be really good at sport. So it was something that I, I thought was a potential career. Further down the line, which is quite unusual, especially coming from an African on a Nigerian family, you know, that that's not really a route that, you know, a lot of people don't think about selling back in the day. So it was, it was an idea that to go down the sports route for it, but it wasn't really top of my list. Obviously, civil engineering was, was what I was, you know, went to Imperial to study and that was, what was going to be the natural path after Imperial. But, you know, I think in the early days, it became very apparent that not something I wanted to do, I thoroughly enjoyed the course, I enjoyed the analytical side of it, I particularly enjoyed the maths, and sort of theoretical and physics side of it. And I wanted to do that, but, you know, I knew not what I wanted to do. I confirm this by doing several internships in my first and second year, offshore and onshore, you know, different engineering firms alongside playing rugby. Just to make sure that you know, there was something that I was missing, but I think I haven't done a few stints, I think it was pretty obvious to me that it's not something that I wanted to spend a long part of my career doing. So then I dedicated a lot of time to my rugby, I was lucky enough to play for, to play for London Irish Academy Academy, and I played a pretty high standard with the first team and you know, and I think I did that for a very long summer. And the idea was to continue doing that full time but again, you know, although I love the love the sport, I just really missed the sort of the other aspects that career outside sports gives you the intellectual aspects and, and I sort of missed the analytical side, the mathematical side. And so I sort of had a had a decision to make again, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to play rugby, but I knew I knew I didn't want to do a full time. And so through discussing with my friends, and talking to a lot of sort of different mentors, people that are in industry and working already, they suggested that I go into finance originally it was quite daunting because I was studying civil engineering, I wasn't doing finance related course, I wasn't doing economics. And so it didn't seem like an obvious an obvious career. But I got encouraged by by the way that I spoke to just just to try it, and I tried it and at the time, I didn't know how I was going to be able to combine it with my with my aspirations to continue playing rugby, but I just tried it anyway, you know, and luckily enough, you know, I managed to get on the internship here at Goldman, I managed to do pretty well. And then fortuitously also found the desk with a manager who, you know, was very flexible, understood my aspiration to obviously have a career in the city, but, but also to continue my passion, which was rugby, you know, and, you know, they made the space and my manager made the space, the firm made the space. And they made that they took that risk on me, you know, and I'd like to think that 17 years old, I've paid back a little bit of that, but yeah, so that's how I ended up here. And I think that for me, to answer your question more directly, I think maybe the summary from my experience is just to try. I think a lot of times people look at people's careers and if you read somebody's CV, it looks like a very linear, well planned path. But I think the lesson from my experience is just to just to give it a go, the sort of try and wait and get it perfectly planned in a vacuum. You know, I did several civil engineering internships, I thought that's my might be what I wanted to do, or that's pretty sure it wasn't I tried it just to confirm I realised not what I wanted to do, I then pivoted to other things. And I've ended up being in a situation where I'm doing a fair selection of the things that I'm interested in doing. And obviously, you know, getting paid for it and building a career around it.
Unknown Speaker 2:06
How did you feel engineering helps, as your career progressed? Is it was it the case that when you started, you might have felt kind of behind the pack? Because you didn't understand some of the finance side of things? But did some of the skills you then had, is this foundation then help you as your career went on?
Unknown Speaker 6:44
Yeah, definitely, I would say that there was a couple of transferable skills from the degree because a lot of the financial models a lot, a lot of assumptions in financial modelling and just engineering models that just been just been converted, and useful for financial products. So I was quite familiar with some of the mathematical sides of what it is that we do, but you're absolutely right, I had no idea about the jargon, I had no idea about the language. So I didn't have an advantage there. But where I did have a little bit of advantage was the university I went to Imperial College definitely prepares you for, for a life of long hours. Life of, of hard work, you know, and I think that that was something that I think definitely helped me when I started because, you know, combining, you know, a analyst role, and a bulge bracket investment firm. And, you know, obviously, playing, having a life in professional sport is is gonna require a lot of your time, not a lot of sleeping. And so I think my four years at Imperial sort of prepared me for that life of, you know, of endless hours of work and a lot of sleep.
Unknown Speaker 7:53
And and on that point, actually, with your rugby professional career, there's, you often hear about the transferable skills between sports and investment, banking, the competitiveness, what are some of the intrinsic skills that are comparable that you get from sport? And what's that transition, like going from sport to sort of investment banking?
Unknown Speaker 8:11
Yeah, that's such a good point. That was the other thing I forgot to mention was, you know, able to operate within a team environment definitely helped. I think, you know, being able to work as a team, probably arguably our biggest competitive advantage as a species, right, it's, you know, humans able to organise themselves in large groups to, you know, to fulfil a common goal, you know, and I think it's a very important skill. It's a very important skill in in working life. And I think, not just playing sport, we're playing a team sport definitely helped me, help definitely helped me when I came onto the trading floor. Certainly back in the early 2000s, when I started, there was still a very sort of strong emphasis on sort of very team orientated setup on the trading floor. Obviously, over the last few years, a lot of it has been disrupted by technology, which I'm sure we're going to go on to talk about later in the podcast. But, you know, back then, you know, there was some technology involvement in what we did, but you know, it's very much in a lot of emphasis on knowing your role within the team, knowing when to push forward and lead knowing went to fall back knowing when to, you know, pick up, pick up the pace, you know, went to, you know, help somebody that might be that might be struggling or went to put up your hand and ask for help, you know, and I think all those sort of skills, I think I learned, rather strange on a rugby pitch and playing all types of different sport now. And it really, really helped and set me in good stead, in addition to, you know, the training that I've had around time management, working, you know, to towards off of very, very tight deadlines that I that I picked up at Imperial,
Unknown Speaker 9:45
but it sounds a bit a balance of some technical understanding of if you're in the more complex side of things mathematics and engineering and intrinsic or transferable skills of teamwork, working under pressure, balance of those is a good combination for working within an investment bank of finance setting. that sort of, say so and so for graduates and for people applying for spring internships, summer internships, it's incredibly competitive. Now, I think there's four or five students achiever first or two, one in their bachelor degree. So grades are no longer a single prerequisite for, for breaking into these sectors. How does a student stand out? For when applying to Goldman, and I guess more generally, as well for spring summer internships and grad positions as well?
Unknown Speaker 10:30
Yeah, I often joke with some of my colleagues that we look at some of these CVS that come through and some of the grades we see, um, it's unclear that we would have been able to make it into the current careers that we, we have if we're applying now, because everybody, you know, is straight A student with a two, one or first class, you know, so, you know, I think the way to get around that, or the way to sort of make yourself stand out is to shine a light on the things that interests you, outside of your degree. I think that makes a massive difference. I think more and more people, what more and more employers want to see now is more around a candidate, you know, you know, what else is this individual capable of doing. And I think I would encourage people to not be to not be shy about, about talking about what they're about what the outside interests are, he'd be very surprised. There's a lot of people that are into into a lot of different things. And what you really want to do is find an area of common of commonality and area, which you can discuss on your own, you can build rapport with the person that you're talking to. So, you know, grades are still important, as you mentioned, for sure. But I think, you know, having that as a prerequisite, but I think over and above that if you really want to, if you really want to sort of, you know, stand out, I would focus on extracurricular stuff, and highlighting your interest that you have outside of your core area of study?
Unknown Speaker 11:59
And what are some of the sort of values you look for those experiences, I think you often hear about dealing with failure, and in previous experiences that can help and I guess, you know, we've mentioned a couple of them working in teams and stuff, but those experiences outside of university, how valuable are they not only for just applying for a particular role, but shaping who you might become in the future? How valuable is that?
Unknown Speaker 12:18
I think it's really valuable, especially, you know, studying in the UK, where arguably I think you're forced to, to specialise quite early, certainly versus, you know, other other countries like the US and Europe where they did the International Baccalaureate, so I think that, you know, to the extent that you can keep your interest by broad within an hour, arguably, I think is a pretty restrictive sort of education framework, I think that's going to help you the reason it's going to help you is because it gives you the ability to pivot, it gives you ability to pivot between careers, within careers, I give you a little small snippet of my journey, the one sort of engineering rather than finance. You know, I think that the more you're exposed to the, the more equipped you are to make those pivots and make those changes. And also, within the work life, within the working life now in the city, like our business is changing so quickly, that, you know, you having to learn on the job, the ability to pivot, and make changes quickly to keep up with the rate at which the business is changing, it'd be a lot easier if you've built a lot of those skills before you start here before you start a career. So stretch yourself, you know, if you're, if you're a stem, focus, student, you know, expensive time on humanities, right? Learn a Language, you know, if you're, if you're someone that's focused on languages, you know, and humanities, why don't you learn some, like learning new coding language, you know, just just these things sort of stretch to stretch your brain, stretch your mind and really help you build up the skills that will allow you to pivot? Not when things are not if things change, but when things change,
Unknown Speaker 14:13
I want to come on to Goldman now, Goldman is a brand and ethos that stands out in the finance sector. I think even if you if you look outside of that, it's it's a name that's known in by people outside of Finance. So it's got a reputation. Why do you think Goldman Sachs has that brand and that reputation?
Unknown Speaker 14:29
Yeah, I think I think for me, personally, what I think about the Goldman brand, what comes to mind is just an excellence. I think it's a it's a working environment that almost demands excellence, excellence for our for our clients, and that's internal and external clients. And I think that that's quite attractive. Because I think if you are a ambitious person, you really want to be part of the team that wants to be the best and you know, I think certainly I benefitted from working with some very, very good people having, as I mentioned earlier on having some very good bosses, very good leaders that have helped me do the best that I can bring the best version of myself to work, you know, it could have be very easy for somebody to say, hey, listen, you're not really interested in this guy, once. He's, I guess it goes to Imperial, he kind of wants to play rugby, but we just want someone who wants to be on the desk, you know, it, that would have been a very easy, easy for somebody to say and sort of discount me and I wouldn't be here talking to you. But I think that the firm goes over and above to try and achieve that excellence. And if it needs to think outside the box to make room for talent, or finish think outside the box to solve a client query and a client problem, a client issue, you have a) the organisation set up in such a way that you can challenge the status quo and make those changes, but b) you've got the quality of people, the quality of person, you know, to find out to find what that solution is. So for me, it's really just that excellence, to work in a place where people are, people are good people are dedicated people, ambitious people are committed, people are focused purely on what the client wants, which is, as I mentioned before, internal and external/
Unknown Speaker 16:19
Could you just drill down on you made a comment about having a good, you've had good bosses in the past. And actually, we've heard that as a theme from lots of people we've spoken to and actually trying to find, or being lucky enough to get a good boss is is really valuable. And you might not know that from day one. But is there things you could look out for? For if you're a student looking for jobs now? Yeah, there are things you could try and do and find out about people that might shine a light on if they're a good boss or not?
Unknown Speaker 16:46
Yeah, that's a very good question. And it's not something that I think a lot of, it's that obvious to people when they when they are looking for jobs, they're just looking for roles, locations, which city, you know, what, what's the title, all those are important, but as you said, the team is also important. And I think the sort of telltale signs of a team that we may fit into is have a look at the most junior people, what are they doing, and enjoying it? Do they look motivated? Are they are they excited to be there. And then also look at the intra team sort of interactions, you know, how flat is a structure, you know, there's the, you know, there's the manager sit, there's him or her sit in an office in the corner of you know, floor, and they never come out and and talk to anybody, they come out all the time. And they're talking, they're making a lot of jokes. And it's very, very informal, like all these things are very important. Now, it's not one size fits all. Some people like different things from people like more hierarchical approach. Some people like the flatter approach some people just the key is to really understand what environment it is you work best in. And watch out for that when you go and you start trying to find a job. And as I mentioned, I'll say it again, the telltale signs are usually in front of you. Just look at the people in the team, look how they operate. Look at the most junior people in the team. That's the most important role. Because that's obviously where you're going to slot in as a as a new graduate.
Unknown Speaker 18:18
I want to touch on diversity and inclusion. It's an important part of government's culture. I think there's a few different initiatives that government have has undertaken. I think they're part of the number of different charters as well, why is diversity inclusion important? And how do you promote inclusivity across both junior and more senior levels?
Unknown Speaker 18:36
Yeah, so diversity inclusion is very important. Here at Goldman, I think that, you know, firstly, you know, I think we can all agree that diversity inclusion is a good thing. It's a, it's a, it's a morally robust thing to try and attain to try and, you know, sort of equalise sort of operate, but equal equality of opportunity for everybody, I think. And then the second thing is, it's actually also good business, right? It's something that, you know, I think maybe sometimes people don't sort of link the two together, but they are intrinsically linked, you know, doing good and doing good business are intrinsically linked. And I think it's something that the firm recognises, you know, and the firm and the firm encourages. I also think that the reason why and sort of a subset of that is that the reason why the firm also really focuses on it is it comes back to this thing about excellence, right? If you're trying to attract the best possible people. To achieve a common goal, you want to give yourself exposure to as big a cast your net as wide as possible. And that's why diversity is important. So you know, asking yourself the question, are we going from all the right universities is it broad, where we, where we hire laterally are we making sure that there's enough diverse representation for lateral hires. You know, and then the inclusion piece is important once these diverse individuals are in, in the firm, are we doing enough to make sure that they feel included? Are we challenging the system enough, you know, to make sure that, you know, the person, the talented engineer who also is a cellist, you know, has the space in order to come here work at Goldman and continue what it is they want to do outside the firm. These are the questions that the firm is constantly asking itself in as part of my time here at Goldman. My other hat is I look after I co run our firm, wide black network, which is an affinity network that we've set up here, the firm has got over 1000 members, what we, what we what the affiliate network does is it creates an environment where people can come and they can celebrate, and learn about black culture. So you know, if you are a black professional here at Goldman, you know, you can, there's a space, there's a group in which you can go, you can feel, you can feel like you need to press your culture, you can celebrate your culture, be it Independence Day for your country of origin and African country of origin, or your Caribbean country of origin. Or if you are a manager of black professionals, you know, and you really want to learn about black culture, because it'll help you become a better manager. This is an environment in which you can have this mutual exchange of views and ideas. So that's really helps drive the inclusion piece. And there's a lot of other things that we're doing internally, that really helped that is a lot of sort of manager training. There's a lot of informal events that the firm sets up to really drive this dialogue and drive this conversation with this end goal being to do the right social good, like do the right social thing, and obviously do do the business. Right. And the two, the two are completely, completely linked. And I think the one thing that the firm does very, very well is I think that the internal, the internal strategy for D&I I think it's extremely strong, we have a lot of large amount of people within our human resources department that dedicated to it. But then also, it's not a human resources problem, or human resources task. There's a lot of people like myself, who were, you know, outside human resources, or human capital management, as we call it? Who are fewer, I just as responsible for driving, for driving the diversity and inclusion, inclusion agenda. And that's why I think that the strategy has been so successful within Goldman is that you've got this sort of symbiotic relationship between HCM colleagues, and those outside HCM. We're working commonly together to get to get stuff done.
Unknown Speaker 22:46
Yeah, I mean, I think I entirely agree, I think diversity of inclusion isn't just, it's a diversity of thought. And when you have that you increase you improve, I think, empirically, it's proven that you improve performance as a consequence. In terms of if we move on to the modern sort of Fintech and technology piece, we've seen the the impacts, the digital acceleration has had on on our lives at home, you know, these these zoom calls, for example, were thing that we didn't even consider a couple of years ago. What impact does technology have in your current role across the global markets business, and how important is Fintech technology? for global markets for the evolving space?
Unknown Speaker 23:26
It's absolutely critical. You know, I think that certainly in the early 2000s, and even now we we continue to invest so much in technology, that I think, you know, we internally used to call ourselves, you know, technology company with finance, with a bank attached. I think that probably overstated a little bit our, our capability, but, but really, it's absolutely critical. Why is it critical, it's critical, because our clients are demanding, more and more from us, they're demanding more than demanding and faster, and they're demanding at an at a higher quality, you know, and the way that you're going to be able to respond to that increase in demand is not always, in fact, I would argue, is not by throwing Warm Bodies at the problem. It has to be technological, it has to be efficient. You know, and so as a consequence, we have, you know, it's something we invest in pretty significantly as well. And that's it every single part of what we do. From, you know, hiring, we use a lot of technology in sort of looking through CV's, trying to find candidates, obviously, we then you know, that's that's the initial process and then we then costs we then put some professional eyes on it, you know, right up to, you know, doing transactions, doing trades. A lot of the trades that we do now, you know, are done electronically, and our clients demand that speed and efficiency and the only way we can deliver that is if we have the right infrastructure, the right, the right the right piece of software. That works. For our internal systems, and then that can also integrate seamlessly with our clients. The other thing that is happening, then it maybe is in the middle is a lot of the analysis that we do on the trading desk. You know, we've we used to do that internally, you know, client would would ask me, ask me for, help them solve a problem to do with an investment or their portfolio, or their port portfolio. And what I would do is I would run around internally do it and do the analysis myself. Clients now demand that they want to do that themselves. And they want to do that themselves within a couple of minutes, the only way we can deliver that is through technology. And so I would say it's absolutely critical that the rollout has been driven by demand, there's a demand side problem, clients are asking for it, and we're having to, we're having to react and invest. And then the last thing I'll say on that is that the technology is not just only it's something that our clients in mind that we invest in, we deliver. But actually, technology is something that actually makes the job more fun. I think technology allows us, as allowed me allow a lot of us to sort of automate a lot of the more mundane aspects of what we do. I mean, I'd love to sit here and say that I love every single part of my job. Certainly, I love large parts of it. But there are definitely aspects of it that I think technology is helping us solve. And it's helping, you know, it's been helping me remove that from my day to day, and so I'm left with just high quality work that I'm excited to do that challenges me, you know, allows me to sort of demonstrate my value add more to the client and more to the firm.
Unknown Speaker 26:42
How important do you think skills around technology like coding and getting deep in that side of it is and that side of it is? How important are they compared to actually how important is it for you in your role just to be able to interface and speak a language, so you can talk to a developer who then does the coding, rather than you doing the coding themselves, there's kind of a step removed, or maybe a few steps removed. And now that you're running, my platform sales, you obviously, no doubt have a lot to do with the products and the platform itself. And you're you're dealing with those teams, what skills would you say would either set someone apart, or would be useful to start learning now, if they're still young, so that they can have that advantage when it comes technology? If they're not coding, you know, if you're coding, that's great, but it's quite deep. And whereas this broader, I think, when we spoke before we're talking about being a generalist versus specialist, is having that kind of ability to talk in a language that a developer can understand is nearly as useful as coding in itself. Could you just elaborate on that?
Unknown Speaker 27:45
Yeah, I think that's a very good, that's a very good question. I think in my role as a salesperson, you know, I don't necessarily need to be deep in one language. But definitely, it definitely has helped, you know, knowing a little bit about the land, like, has helped knowing a little bit the logic, how it works, like how developers think, you know, it's, it helped in my degree, because back in the day, we were using an old language called visual Fortran, you know, that, that I never thought I'd ever use again. But that, and I certainly don't remember a lot of it. But I definitely remember that the process of thinking through problems, the process of breaking down problems logically, and try to represent them and solve them through software through through software, right, by working with a developer and trying to come up with software solutions. So to answer your question, I would say, you know, if you're looking to go into a high, you know, to an engineering role, absolutely. It's important that you go deep on programming language, very, very important. But if you're going into sort of more sales and trading roles, I think it's very, very, I think it's important for you to at least know what a different languages are. And it's very, very easy. A lot of the information now is we believe democratise, you can go and do a very easy course on Coursera, for example, right? You know, it's it's online, it's completely online, you can do it, you can do an introductory course on it, just so you have an idea of what it entails. So yeah, I think if you're not, if you're not going to be an engineer, I don't think it's critical for you to know a language. But if you're an engineer, obviously it is. And you know, even if you're not going to go critical if you're going to go deep into languages, definitely worth knowing what you're playing with.
Unknown Speaker 29:30
Yeah. So with going back to the technology side, it becomes more important for the each day that goes by and like you said, you can, you can automate the automatable. You can get rid of those manual tasks, you can focus on high value stuff, where does that leave sales and trading and those roles in the next 5-10 years when you do have quants and algos that are dominating in some markets more than others? You've got some markets, which are historically have been manual and pick people picking up the phone still, and they're now becoming digitised as well. So how do you see you mentioned before technology is is actually helping and augmenting what you're doing. But where? Where would a sales and trader sit in 10 years time when all this technology can do most of the job?
Unknown Speaker 30:20
Yeah I think that that's an inevitable path. And I think what the future looks like is a is a collaborative relationship between, you know, one body, humans and technology, I think that the way that the market is going, the demands that our clients have, the only way that this can be satisfied is really by having a combination of human and, and technology, I don't think either can do it by themselves, I don't think that having a pure human strategy will, will be able to satisfy that client demand, I don't think having a pure technology strategy will will will satisfy that either. I think that the future, the future kind of is, the future solution is a combination of the two. And I think that you're going to have more more of the sort of automatable tasks we'll get, we'll go to software solutions. You know, I think there's still a lot of sort of complicated functions. And that's that I, I think we know, humans will have to keep doing for a long period of time, particularly around the relationship aspect of things as well. I think a lot of that will still be managed. But, you know, I'm under no illusion, I think that in the future, we'll probably have in the further future where we have as a software solution to it as well. But, you know, certainly in the immediate in the immediate future, and I'm saying sort of 10-15 years from now, I think that the future of our businesses is this sort of optimal combination between between software and humans.
Unknown Speaker 31:56
And just to finish off, final question, if you were to go back now to a younger version of yourself, maybe when you're 18, or 20. And when you're studying or, or university, and you're looking at embarking on a career somewhere, like you said, you've not had this kind of linear path. But in hindsight, that's actually been beneficial for you, because you found out what you don't like doing, which gets you closer to what you do like to do. Have you got any advice to a younger version of yourself, or just younger people in general?
Unknown Speaker 32:26
I probably advise to myself, I mean, Goldman is got 152 year organisation 40,000 employees in more than 60 cities. You know, that's, that's a pretty incredible privilege to be in an organisation like that. And I would probably say, I wish I enjoyed it a little bit more. And that's not to say that, you know, to take away from my ambition, I definitely was very ambitious coming into this business. I don't think to take that away, but I think maybe celebrate a little bit more of the wins that I had along the way. I think that that would definitely have, you know, held me in good stead and certainly, you know, allows you to really sort of get some strength and get some encouragement, you know, when you're facing the different roles and different tasks. The reason why that's important is because I think that nowadays, you know, it's becoming increasingly important to have that resilience to be able to face challenges at difficult moments in people's careers and in people's lives. And I think that although, you know, I've luckily I've been able to sort of stay as long as I have and been they've been here and been relatively successful. I think that you know, and I had a decent amount of resilience, I think that those will come into the business now she, I wish I would encourage them to guard their resilience, a lot more, invest in it a lot more and I think investing in that resilience comes from enjoying it, like finding moments which you can enjoy, and certainly celebrating the wins, right celebrating the wins feeling happy for the wins, then soon as you finish celebrating, get get back after it.
Unknown Speaker 34:03
Brilliant thank you very much for this interview Kene it was was very insightful. And I'm sure lots of people can can take this as a playbook as how to learn how to get in sales and trading and then benefit from some of the experience and advice that you're imparting. So thanks a lot Kene. Thank you Amrit
Transcribed by https://otter.ai