The Wall Street-headquartered investment bank and wealth manager has set out targets for closing off gender gaps in recruitment and career advancement.

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, and one of the people reported to be his possible successor, have added their voices to the cause of improving career chances for women in the workplace. They want women to make up at least half of their incoming cohort of analysts by 2021.

Blankfein and Goldmans co-president David Solomon told staff in a memo: “The advancement of women in the workplace – and more broadly the state of diversity at our firm – is top of mind for all of us. While we have made progress in recent years on women’s representation and ethnic and racial diversity, there is still significant progress to be made.”

“Equality of pay between women and men is also generating important focus around the world. At Goldman Sachs we pay women and men in similar roles with similar performance equally. However, the real issue for our firm and many corporations is the under-representation of women and diverse professionals both in magnitude and levels of seniority. We have made some progress, but we have significant work to do, and we, as leaders of our firm, are committed to doing this critical work.”

The comments, coming over a week after International Women’s Day and a flurry of reports about pay gaps in financial services, highlight how Wall Street big-hitters such as Goldman Sachs think they must send out a different message. 

“Effecting change requires time, the collective focus of our people, and new thinking to drive incremental, but meaningful, progress for our firm. We are committed to having women represent 50 percent of our global talent over time. An important first step is to have women make up 50 percent of our incoming analyst class – and we are working to achieve this goal by 2021. In addition, we are working to increase the number of women and diverse professionals who join our firm through our lateral hiring efforts,” they said. 

“It is incumbent upon us to operate with a heightened focus on driving greater diversity in our hiring and promotion decisions to sustain and enhance our culture. Ultimately, we must ensure Goldman Sachs continues to be one of the best institutions to come and build a career,” they added.

To see some other stories about gender differences and the financial services sector, see here and here.