Asahi Pompey Recommends You "Burn the Boat"

Careers are complex. Oftentimes, it's beneficial to hear from someone who has successfully navigated their own professional journey. Few people have chartered a career better than Asahi Pompey , who is a partner at 高盛 and president and head of global engagement at the Goldman Sachs Foundation.

Pompey joined LinkedIn News Editor Andrew Seaman for the latest episode of #GetHired with Andrew Seaman to share her career journey (including how she pivoted from a successful career in law to one in finance and threw herself into learning her new field). She also shared some of the exciting initiatives she’s worked on at Goldman Sachs, including One Million Black Women and 10K Small Businesses , which empower underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Asahi shared some key tips she’s developed throughout her career, including that...

Community Is Key

As Asahi told us, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.” Working with colleagues, mentors, and even people a few rungs behind you on the ladder will make everyone’s work better, easier, and stronger – and more fun.

Giving Back

It can be overwhelming to pick just one cause to spend your energy and attention on, but Asahi recommends doing just that. Consistency is the best way to make an impact.

Capitalize On Uncertainty

Even though economic times are uncertain and the future looks shaky, Asahi says this is exactly the moment to make a confident move. Look ahead and try to figure out where your industry or company is headed, and try to add value ahead of the curve.

TRANSCRIPT: Asahi Pompey Recommends You "Burn the Boat"

Andrew: One of the best parts of my job is getting to talk to people who've had interesting career paths, and especially those who have left the door open behind them to make sure the next person also has a path to success. That's today's episode.

From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's Managing Editor for Jobs and Career Development. Each week on Get Hired, we talk about leveling up. Sometimes, we talk about finding work. Other times, we talk about excelling where you are right now. And through it all, we focus on how to stay true to yourself in the process.

When you think of investment banking, you probably have a particular type of person and set of interests in mind. My guest today, Asahi Pompey, blows up every single one of your assumptions. She's a partner at Goldman Sachs, where she's also the head of global engagement and the president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. She also grew up in housing projects in Brooklyn after her family emigrated to the states from South America. She's been a pioneer for programs at the firm to support entrepreneurs of all sorts, especially Black women.

So today, Asahi is taking us behind the curtain of her career and sharing advice for finding a place for yourself, and seizing on the opportunities you've been given. First, here's Asahi with the Cliffs Notes of her career journey.

Asahi: Where I came from, no one would've predicted I would become the most senior black person at Goldman Sachs or part of Goldman Sachs's Management Committee, or frankly have the job that I do or even work at Goldman Sachs. In terms of my role, simply put, my role is to ensure that we're leveraging Goldman Sachs's capital, people, thought leadership to make a positive impact in communities around the world, predominantly the communities in which Goldman Sachs operates. In terms of a little bit about my background, I'm an immigrant and my family came to this country when I was 10 from Guyana. We moved to Brooklyn into the Vanderveer housing projects. And really, I was from a family that really focused on education and the thought was, look, we don't come from much, but our chance to be able to really move up and support ourselves, which was on Maslow's hierarchy, that was where people were thinking, was really to do well in school. And God bless, I loved school, did well in school and had phenomenal teachers. Really that's what led me on my path to Swarthmore College, to Columbia Law School, I'm a recovering lawyer. To then get my job at Goldman Sachs. Now, this is my 17th year at the firm.

Andrew: That's incredible.

Asahi: I did start as a child. It's okay, you can say it.

Andrew: A child prodigy at 10 at Goldman Sachs.

Asahi: There you go. I love you.

Andrew: We'll get into this more later, but you mentioned the communities that Goldman Sachs operates and is in, I think a lot of people, they hear “Goldman Sachs” and they think, "Big bank, Wall Street, finance." Can you tell us a little bit about how Goldman Sachs ladders down into a lot of communities?

Asahi: We do that in a number of ways. One is we do it through our work with entrepreneurs. To take a lens back, you think, "OK, Goldman Sachs is a bank. How are we uniquely positioned to be helpful in communities?" As we looked at that, we thought, "Well, using capital markets for good." And how can we use capital markets for good? A lot of our efforts are around entrepreneurship in particular because, as you think about what creates intergenerational wealth? What is a foundation of communities? We've narrowed in on small businesses in particular, and we've really continued and built that focus. So that's one of the key ways in which we're laddering into communities.

Andrew: And getting back to you though, I want to ask, seeing where you are now and knowing a little bit about your background, it doesn't seem like an accident that you've really plotted an incredible career. But for you looking back, how did you get here? Was it deliberate to say, "This is how I'm taking my steps to get to Goldman Sachs"? Or how did you figure out, "This is where I'm going"? Or did you figure that out as you went along?

Asahi: I think the real edge as I look back and reflect on it is staying hungry and being willing to put in the hard work. I add on to that a marriage of being able to manage your own emotions and manage your own ego. What do I mean by that? The job offer I got at Goldman Sachs in 2006 was a job where half a person reported to me in Bengaluru. I was coming from a place where I had over 60 lawyers reporting to me. And I remember people at the time saying, "Eh, do you want to take that job, Asahi? You're on top of what you're doing, you're going to Goldman. What are you doing exactly there? You don't even have a team, you're not a manager." But I knew I wanted to be at Goldman, if I had to take a role that was lower than where I was previously, I had every confidence that I could bet on me and I was going to be able to either flame out entirely in the first year, and then I would've learned a lot from the experience, or I was going to be able to play at that level and I could get back a team, I'd become a manager again. And so I think very often as I think about people and careers, sometimes it's that management of your ego as you're coming in or whatever it is, or if someone gets promoted ahead of you, having those presence of mind to say, "Do I like what I do? Do I feel like I can still have an impact? Do I like this place where I work?" And you stay with it, and, who knows? Six months, nine months, the deck chairs have changed and your opportunity comes. If I had listened to some of the people who thought, "Look, this role at Goldman was too small," I wouldn't have come here, but I knew this is where I wanted to work and this is where I thought I could make an impact. I'm a big burn-the-boat person. And what I mean by that is once I'm at an employer, this is my home, this is where I'm building my career, I'm going to learn about that business. I'm going to invest in the place, I'm going to invest in the people, in mentoring people, being mentored by people, learning the business, being part of the culture, I'm going to be all in. That's what I mean by “burn the boat.” You go to the island, you burn the boat, and you're like, "This is my home."

Andrew: There's no going back.

Asahi: There's no going back, right? Now, you can chop down some trees and build another boat if you really needed to get off the island. But the thought is people can tell whether you're in or you're one foot out. I don't know what it is, but you send off those radars as signals that say, "Are you all in or are you halfway out?" So I'm a big burn-the-boat person. At that point, once I started looking, I knew I was going to leave and I was going to build a new home. And 17 years later, here I am.

Andrew: You really burned the boat. This goes to probably the largest topic we will mention today, and it's about bringing people with you. You've made that a theme, it seems throughout your career, to say, "Not only am I going through this door, but I'm leaving it open to bring other people through it." Was that a conscious choice you made or was it something that you realized you were doing and you're like, "This is great and I'm going to keep doing it"?

Asahi: I think it's a personal ethos. It's a value of mine. I really do believe if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others. I like going with others. I feel like I'm a better person, I'm a better player, I'm a more valuable employee, and frankly, I enjoy the experience more. I feel like those moments where I've really expanded and grown the most in my career, it's really been about the investment and working with other people that's really enabled that. As I reflect on where I've seen people's careers go over time, the people who are solo players don't go as far as the people who are really working with other people in teams and able to do that well. It's a real differentiator. And frankly, I think the experience is more enjoyable along the way.

Andrew: Definitely. In your work, you directly get to impact people's lives. The first thing I wanted to touch on is the investment that Goldman Sachs has made with the One Million Black Women Initiative. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about that and how it came about really?

Asahi: Yes. Simply speaking, it's the largest commitment ever in the history of this country, specifically focused on Black women: $10 billion over the course of the next 10 years to positively impact the lives of at least a million Black women. That's investment, balance sheet, debt and equity investments that Goldman Sachs is making. And on top of that, if that weren't enough, $100 million in philanthropic capital to be deployed to non-profits working with Black women and girls. And we're doing it across six or so pillars. Ones that you would likely expect” education, access to capital, closing the digital divide that we all know in the wake of the pandemic has become even more evident. Healthcare is another one. Entrepreneurship. Those are some of the areas that we're focused on looking for investments and looking for non-profits that we can make donations to. And that's a 10-year initiative.

Andrew: I assume that really the goal here too is also if you affect that many people's lives, especially when they're women, mothers, sisters, daughters, it spreads much more than just beyond those one million people, which is no easy feat. Even just one million people, but the arms are quite long with that, right?

Asahi: Bingo, you have just nailed it. Now, the way I usually describe it, I usually say, "The blast radius of impacting that one woman it just ricochets out to girls in the community." If she owns a business, people employed in that business, these entrepreneurs, they tend to be active in their community. So there's a triple bottom line in terms of making that investment.

Andrew: That's really fascinating. And for people listening, how does this play out in a community or for a woman who is touched by this program?

Asahi: Oh my gosh. This is the part that I love because it's the specifics around how the initiative is making an impact. Let me talk about one particular initiative that's part of OMBW, One Million Black Women, which is BIB, Black in Business. We found a number of things. One is that 97% of Black small businesses are solopreneurships, so it's just a single person trying to run this business. The other thing we saw is that three years out, less than 3% of those businesses are still around. So we thought, "If we've got all these businesses, there's solopreneurs, but they've got such a high fail rate, is this an opportunity for Goldman Sachs to step in and work with these Black women businesses to grow them and to really stop the fail rate of these businesses?" So we've had, whether it's women that are running salons, some of them are bakers, some of them are running social media businesses, others of them are running daycare centers out of their home, all the spectrum of businesses. And we're providing education to these businesses to say, "We understand where you are and let's work on a growth plan as to how to grow your business." That's a really tangible example. So far we've had over 150 women participate in Black in Business, and we're going to be tracking it and looking at where those solopreneurs are after six months, after a year, after two years.

Andrew: I think that's such a good idea because I know so many people who go into an entrepreneurial field where they say, "I'm going to start my business." And they have the skills to do the job, but then they also need business skills alongside of that. And that's oftentimes the part where people aren't prepared. I think that's such a great example.

We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, how small businesses can help each other.

Andrew: We're back with Asahi Pompey, who is a partner at Goldman Sachs and the president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. The other program that you already mentioned is 10,000 Small Businesses. And can you tell us a little bit about that program?

Asahi: Sure. 10K SB, or 10,000 Small Businesses is devoted to providing three things to entrepreneurs across the United States. Best in-class education is one, access to capital is two, and network is the third thing. And fourthly, advocacy, helping small businesses to advocate with policy makers because so much of the policies from Congress or from the US government impact small businesses disproportionately and giving them that voice with policymakers, it's an offshoot called 10,000 Small Businesses: Voices. But effectively we've had over 12,500 small business owners graduate from our program. Andrew, people often ask me, "Wow, you've exceeded your goal of 10,000. Are you going to change the name of the initiative?" Whereupon I say, "No, but we're going to get to 20,000 small businesses."

Andrew: With that too, it's a lot about, it seems, helping them thrive and survive and in places where they may not feel like they have a ton of community among their needs so that you have maybe a chamber of commerce for larger established businesses. But a small business may say, "I don't really feel included in a lot of things." Right?

Asahi: Exactly right. I mean, so many business owners tell me, they say, "Look Asahi, it's so lonely being a small business owner, especially over the course of the pandemic," to have this community of people to say, "I don't know if we're going to hit our numbers." You're not telling your employees that necessarily, or, "I'm really concerned about this supply chain issue that we're having," or, "I'm really having a tough time getting this government contract and this could really revolutionize our business." Or, "Look, payroll issues I'm having because I've had to increase wages so much, how much of this can I pass on to my customers?" All of that, you get then this community of business owners that you can then have those dialogues with. So people, our graduates in the restaurant industry chat with each other, and those in healthcare chat with each other, they chat across. 86% of them do business with each other, which is one of my favorite stats. And frankly, one of the things we could not have anticipated when we launched this platform, that it would become its own exchange of business owners referring and doing business with each other.

Andrew: Now, that's really fantastic, and especially just because it's the cycle of support.

Asahi: Yes. The cycle of support.

Andrew: Going back to the idea of giving back part of your career, we obviously have a lot of people who are probably early in their careers, later in their careers, but maybe they don't think consciously about “how do I help other people in my job?” How would you suggest people go about that? If you were saying, "I want to do this more intentionally," how do you suggest people do that?

Asahi: I would say two things. One is, very often people come to me and they're interested in five or six different areas. I would say, to have an impact over time, pick one. Pick one that's driving you, whether it's, I want to do more on climate change, or I want to do more on bail reform, or I want to do more on entrepreneurship or access to capital. Whatever it is the issue is that drives you, and I talk to lots of junior people. I think pick one and then figure out how you're going to be involved. Maybe it's joining the board of a non-profit, maybe it's volunteering around voter registrations or whatever it is that your particular area is. But I think the consistency and the continuity over time, because frankly you become better at it, than flittering from here and there. And frankly, you become more impactful and you can take your lens back and say, "The power of one, this is my singular focus. I'm going to do this for the next year to 18 months and really see how my work can make an impact." We have a terrific initiative at the firm called Community Teamworks, but it's effectively our volunteer channel, which is also under my leadership to figure out how Goldman Sachs can use its people power, as I like to call it, where people that invest in communities around the world by devoting their time.

Andrew: Oh, that's great. Yeah. And I know you still obviously have a long career ahead of you, but so far you've obviously navigated such a successful career. We are maybe entering a time of uncertainty, and I think a lot of people tend to get nervous about that, and they entrench themselves in what they're doing. What is your suggestion for people who look into the future and say, "Things are a little shaky and unknown." What would your advice be for someone who's trying to figure out what they want to do next or what they should do next?

Asahi: I would ask them a question and I'd ask them to ask themselves a question, namely, during this period of uncertainty, do you want to be the person that is, "I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm so concerned about X, Y, or Z"? Which is fine water cooler conversation. Or do you want to be the person that's saying, "There's a lot of change going on right now. Where are the opportunities for me? What are my skills? What differentiates me? At the end of this period of uncertainty where things become a bit more stable, where do I want to be?" You can either be in the bucket of people that are hand-wringing or you could be in the bucket of people that are really trying to be a homing beacon, as I like to say, for opportunity during those time periods. As I think about moments in which careers are made, it's during periods of uncertainty. So think, "This is the moment where I'm going to make my career." It's you, whomever's listening, make that your moment, this is your moment, and look for those opportunities. Now, what do I mean by that? Be sensitive to reading what's happening in the markets. Think about your group, what does it mean for your particular group? Maybe you're in audit, maybe you're in compliance, you're in legal, you're on the investment banking side, you're in operations. Ok, so what's that going to mean? Are we going to be taking on more responsibility? Are we going to have to consolidate? Think about those questions and be engaged in that dialogue less from a hand-wringing perspective and more from a strategic perspective. You are going to differentiate yourself.

Andrew: That's wonderful. I think that's such great advice. And like you said, make your move while everyone else is napping against the wall.

Asahi: You and me are alike, Andrew, we're going to make our move then.

Andrew: Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Asahi.

Asahi: Likewise. It's been terrific talking with you.

Andrew: That was Goldman Sachs's Asahi Pompey. Remember, it's up to you to put our advice into practice. Still, you always have a community backing you up and cheering you on.

Connect with me and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. You can also join my weekly Get Hired live show every Friday on the LinkedIn news page. And if you liked this episode, and even if you didn't, leave us a rating on Apple Podcast, it helps people like you find the show. And of course, we'll continue this conversation next week, right here, wherever you like to listen.

Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Michele O'Brien. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video. Dave Pond is head of news production. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.