A former vice president at Goldman Sachs said she left a six-figure job at the Wall Street giant two years ago to become a novelist because of its “man’s world” culture that left female employees “not feeling valued.”
Lindsay MacMillan, who worked at the bank’s marketing department where she rose to become a VP, wrote that she cut short a promising career after six years at Goldman because she felt the need to “keep my feminine side tucked away” being one of the few women in her division.
She said that her grueling 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily schedule and long hours on weekends was dictated by “whatever the male leadership pushed,” according to her essay in Business Insider.
“Under my desk, I would keep a pair of black pumps that I called my ‘Hollywood heels,’” she wrote. “When I put them on every morning, I channeled a thick-skinned character who thrived in a man’s world.”
Being the only woman on a team of 20 investors, MacMillan wrote that she “had to mimic the masculine way to succeed.”
“I wore a pantsuit and muted my personality,” MacMillan wrote, mentioning the recent exodus of high-ranking women from Goldman as well as a $215 million class action settlement over claims that female staffers suffered gender pay discrimination as well as sexual harassment.
“I played golf, talked football, and cried in the bathroom stall so I wouldn’t be seen shedding tears at my desk,” MacMillan wrote.
When MacMillan used exclamation points in her emails, she was told to stop, according to her essay.
“My out-of-the-box ideas were discouraged,” she wrote.
When MacMillan baked cookies and brought them into the office for co-workers, she said she was admonished that she “should have been building financial models instead of baking.”
MacMillan wrote that when she posted poetry on her Instagram account, she was the recipient of “negative comments” from colleagues “about how emotional the poems were.”
Despite reaching the rank of vice president at the age of 28, MacMillan wrote that she was “burned out — not from the work itself but from the parts of me I had to dim along the way.”
“The internal balancing act pushed me out,” she wrote.
The Post has sought comment from MacMillan and Goldman Sachs.
After Business Insider published the story on its web site on Tuesday, MacMillan wrote on LinkedIn that the publication’s editors “slapped a sensational headline” on her essay “without my permission” that included a subtitle claiming, “the ‘boys only’ culture drove me out.”
“Not only did I not write these words, but I made clear that the headline needed to be about CELEBRATING women, not bashing men,” MacMillan wrote on LinkedIn.
She accused Business Insider of having “disregarded my input” and “scrapped the many headlines I sent through in favor of a click-baity one that misrepresents the article.”
“It’s pretty simple — if it’s our name on the byline, then give us final approval of the headline,” she wrote.
“Otherwise you’re just exploiting us.”
The Post has sought comment from Business Insider.
In November 2022, MacMillan published another essay in Business Insider which appears to contradict some of the claims she made in her latest submission.
In Tuesday’s essay, MacMillan claimed to have been forced to work a “7 a.m. to 10 p.m.” schedule by her male superiors.
But two years ago she wrote that she had “an uncommonly good work-life balance for Wall Street” during which she was “logging only about fifty hours a week.”
MacMillan also wrote in 2022 that she was not unhappy at Goldman.
“It would’ve been easier to leave Goldman if I’d been miserable and working hundred-hour weeks, per the stereotypes,” MacMillan wrote back then. “But I wasn’t.”
MacMillan added that she “didn’t hate my job by any means” and that she found the work “intellectually stimulating.”
She gushed over the fact that she “met wonderful mentors and friends” while “learn[ing] about the business world from the best of the best.”
“I just loved writing so much that I couldn’t justify keeping it as a side hobby any longer,” MacMillan wrote at the time.
The Post has sought clarifications from MacMillan.
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