Gabriel

I work in the Finance division of Goldman Sachs. In my role, I evaluate risk and the capital needs of the firm and analyze the associated returns on equity of the various business lines.

My role at the firm provides me with a great opportunity to broaden my thinking and address complex business issues. I love the fact that our team interacts with people throughout the organization, including risk managers, traders, bankers, and controllers. This helps me understand the risk from all perspectives. Being part of Market Risk, I get an overall view of the firm’s risk profile and I can see how the impact of the daily financial news impacts the firm’s positions.

Working as a team is critical in my department. Timing is very important for making business decisions and providing accurate results in a short time frame requires teamwork. When there is a large trade or a new product that needs to go for bid, we work very closely with traders, strategists, corporate treasury, and controllers against very tight deadlines to make it happen. This can only be achieved as a close team.

There are many business opportunities within the firm. As you work on a particular topic and become very knowledgeable about it, you may discover certain things that could be improved on. Most of the time this means that the business has changed and what was fine before does not work any more. I’ve found it to be helpful to question assumptions in order to discover a new way of approaching the problem. That leads to new windows of opportunities.