Lloyd Blankfein can get back to doing “God’s work.”
The Goldman Sachs boss said the investment bank is a better place after completing a three-year overhaul of its business practices.
Blankfein, speaking at the firm’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, yesterday, touted the steps the bank has taken to improve client relationships and avoid the conflicts of interest that battered its reputation after the financial crisis.
“We focused a lot of ourselves on trying to benefit from the crisis that happened,” Blankfein told Bloomberg in an interview.
“We were going to use that opportunity to make ourselves a better firm and being very transparent to our clients.”
Goldman now factors reputational risk into bonuses and annual performance reviews — with particular focus on its most veteran employees.
At least 25 percent of a review will be determined by how the employee upholds the company’s much vaunted partnership culture.
Goldman outlined that as well as other changes in a 30-page report. The review was the work of the Business Standards Committee, which Blankfein set up in 2010 to get the bank back on track.
Goldman took a beating took after it paid $550 million to settle allegations of misleading clients over a complicated mortgage deal. During its lowest point it was dubbed a “vampire squid.”
Blankfein also came off as tone deaf during a 2009 interview, when he said he was just “doing God’s work.” Since then he has been leading a charm offensive to burnish the bank’s image.