Meet Goldman Sachs

Most likely you are already familiar with one of the world's top investment banking, securities and investment management firms, The Goldman Sachs Group or just Goldman Sachs. Even if you're not quite sure of what they do exactly, I'm sure you've heard of them. Headquartered in Manhattan, they have been refered to as "Wall Street's Secret Society," they offer services to an extensive range of clients, such as corporations and governments. Since the creation of the renown Fortune list, Goldman Sachs has held a respectable ranking every year, this year ranking #9 on the “100 Best Companies to Work For."

I have chosen to blog about this company because over the past summer I interned in Manhattan at an investment real estate and management firm. I found the work and environment to be very exciting and challenging. However, I noticed that they lack a Public Relations/Communications function within the firm. I thought that it would be interesting to look into how similiar firms utilize the media and press and hopefully, discover if they are effective or not, while also offering my critiques and own opinions. My blog will concentrate on various ways Goldman Sachs uses the media or any medium of communication to inform the public of happenings within the company.

Goldman Sach's focuses on advising, financing, investing, securities and researching for their clients. Their website is well equipt with information regarding the history and progress of the firm throughout the years. There is a slideshow that I found to be very interesting and helpful in researching the company because it features real employees of the firm offering their insights and thoughts on what they do. The visuals are very effective and creatively used. One employee described his job as "making things happen," which I thought was a good description because it would be somewhat complicated to explain his job to an outsider. There is also timelines available as well. You can really see that the firm believes in keeping their reputation high standing and that they have a strong sense of corporate responsibility to their community. They take their philanthropy seriously and this is something I find to be very admirable. Goldman Sachs stresses in the slideshow their dedication to the community and public service, which really credits their reputation and makes it much stronger. Also, because the company is global, they are represented by 6 public relations agencies throughout the world and have 14 telephone contacts in different countries for the media.

To keep the public aware of what is going on, there are current as well as archived press releases, dating back to 2000, available on their website. However, an issue could be that the most current one is dated January 29, almost 6 days ago so they should probably have a more recent one posted. The website does a good job of showing the positive business principles of the company and the "Our Story" slideshow depicts a positive, generous and respectable company. Also, in 2007 there was a scandal involving an employee, who was involved in insider trading and accused of making $6.7 million dollars. It will be interesting to research this scandal of which I am not familiar with and see how the public still feels regarding the company and what they are doing to build their loyalty and trust with clients. This is a real ethical and moral situation that the company was faced with and I'm curious as to what comments were made by Goldman Sachs.

Also, does the public feel that the company is out just to make big profits? Has this damaged their reputation forever? Will this crisis morph into an opportunity for Goldman Sach's public relations professionals?

The investigation will continue.

Until next time,
Check out the website: http://www.goldmansachs.com/ to further introduce yourself to the company.