Broad Street: My Mostly Bullish Career at Goldman Sachs

By Janet Hanson

Janet Hanson met John Whitehead on a chartered sailboat when she was a senior in college. It was a trip that would change the course of her life forever. As one of the most respected senior partners at Goldman Sachs, the investment banking powerhouse, Whitehead urged Hanson to go to business school and join him at the firm. With zero interest in doing either, Hanson graduated from college and returned to her job at the local golf club. Realizing that her golf game was improving but her life was going nowhere, Hanson got her MBA and joined Goldman Sachs as a twenty-four-year-old associate in Fixed Income Sales.
Fiercely competitive, Hanson would eventually earn the awe and admiration of the trading desks by becoming one of the biggest revenue producers in the division. When she married one of her colleagues, they became the ultimate power couple. After the marriage fizzled, work became Hanson’s obsession and before long, she became her ex-husband’s boss as the first female sales manager in the firm’s history. Still managing a full account load, Hanson put her foot on the gas and left it there. Whenever she felt depressed, she spent lavishly on cars, clothes, and expensive trips for her family.
Finally realizing that she’d hit the wall and the glass ceiling, Hanson impulsively quit her job. Over the next six years, Hanson remarried, had two kids, and came back to Goldman in a vain attempt to resurrect her floundering career.
In 1994, Hanson ripped a page right out of Goldman’s playbook and launched her own mutual fund company with a handful of ex-GS professionals. Broad Street tells the story of Hanson’s tumultuous career ride at Goldman Sachs and later, how she parlayed every lesson learned into her own wildly successful, multi-billion dollar asset management firm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Feb 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781662909412

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

How I Got to Goldman Sachs

In 1972, I transferred to Mills College to begin my junior year. After two years at Wheaton (both Mills and Wheaton were women’s colleges), I left Massachusetts and headed for Oakland, California. I chose Mills because I wanted to be on the same coast as my boyfriend, who lived and worked in San Diego.

I didn’t know anyone at Mills and while I loved the campus and my enormous dorm room, I was incredibly homesick. The first day of school fell on my twentieth birthday. Sitting alone in the dining hall that evening, a woman came out of the kitchen with a candle-lit cake and sang Happy Birthday, as instructed by my mother. I was mortified.

A few weeks later, I was sitting on a couch in the lobby of my dorm when a girl with white-blond hair walked past me, followed by an entourage of friends. She turned and asked me my name but before I could answer, she sauntered off.

At 3:00 a.m., donuts started flying through the transom above my door. Tired and pissed, I opened the door to find the blond who had written me off in the lobby earlier that day. She apologized, laughed, and said, Let’s be friends. Her name, appropriately enough, was Anne Whitehead.

The next day, I walked upstairs to Anne’s room, which was on the second floor of our dorm. After one glance, it was abundantly clear that Anne’s family was loaded. Her room had thick shag carpeting, an expensive stereo system, and a closet stuffed with beautiful clothes. Parked right in front of our dorm was Anne’s brand-new Datsun 280Z. Although Anne and I were in the same psych class and occasionally studied together, we ran in completely different social circles.

After my junior year was over, I transferred back to Wheaton, leaving California and my boyfriend behind. Anne, who wanted a livelier campus life than an all-women’s college could provide, transferred to Stanford.

That November, Anne called me out of the blue and asked if I would like to accompany her family on what she described as a boring sailing trip in the West Indies. Without hesitating, I said, Count me in!

A few days later, I got a letter in the mail from Anne’s father, John Whitehead. Unbeknownst to me, John was a senior, and highly respected, partner at Goldman Sachs, an investment banking powerhouse in New York City. John’s letter was addressed to the members of "The Naraina Crew" which included Anne; Anne’s younger brother, Greg; Greg’s girlfriend, Michelle; John’s wife, Jaan, and me.

To: The Naraina Crew

From: Ass’t Captain Bligh Whitehead

Departure: We expect the crew to assemble at 131 Old Chester Road, Essex Fells, NJ on December 26 and stay overnight. A car will pick us up at 7 a.m., December 27 to take us to JFK. We leave on BWIA Flight 425 at 9:30 a.m. arriving Barbados 2:55 p.m. We transfer to LIAT Flight 355 leaving Barbados 3:45 p.m. arriving Grenada at 5:05 p.m. Met by cabs. Drive across island to harbor. Board Naraina. Eat. Sleep.

Activities: The next morning we will walk around St. George’s in Grenada, set sail around noon and over the next 12 days wend our way north through exotic islands such as Carriacou, Union, Tobago, Mustique, Palm, Bequia, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Martinique. The sailing is not hard, never more than 4 or 5 hours a day. We always anchor at night; the weather is almost always great and the wind steady. Activities: swimming, snorkeling (fins and masks supplied), fishing, sailing (Sunfish), water skiing, sunbathing, sightseeing, shopping, speed boating, eating, etc.

Return: We leave Fort de France on Martinique on Eastern Flight 984 at 11:35 a.m. on January 7, arriving JFK at 5:35 p.m. A car will meet us and take everyone home to Essex Fells arriving around 7:30 p.m., except for Ass’t Captain who has to go on to Minneapolis. All are welcome to spend the night.

Baggage: Travel light please. One medium suitcase is enough. No fancy clothes necessary. We live in bathing suits and bare feet. Better bring two bathing suits. Ashore, shorts and shirt or a simple cotton dress or skirt are sufficient. Jackets, ties or anything dressy are never required.

Sunburn: This is the worst hazard. The sun can be brutal. Bring plenty of sun lotions and something to cover up with like an old white shirt or cotton pajamas and socks.

Music: There’s a hi-fi aboard. Bring 8-track tapes if you want. Other musical instruments are welcome, even a saxophone.

On December 27, we flew to Barbados but discovered once we arrived that we couldn’t go on to Grenada due to political unrest on the island. Instead, Ass’t Captain Bligh Whitehead chartered a plane to fly us to St. Vincent where we boarded the Naraina.

That evening, after the dinner plates had been cleared from the table, John announced that we were going to play bridge. I blanched when he chose me as his bridge partner. Fortunately, when I was a teen, I had taken bridge lessons from Alan Truscott, a world-renowned player who wrote the bridge column for The New York Times. Alan and his family lived across the street from us in Hastings.

Clearly, I hadn’t taken enough lessons because on the very first hand played, I trumped John’s ace. He was dumbfounded. Over the next four decades, I would hear John delight in telling that story on more occasions than I could count.

Although John had assured us that the weather during our sail would be idyllic, one afternoon we got caught in a squall. We were all shrieking and laughing every time we slammed into a wave until Greg was nearly washed overboard. After that, everyone was ordered to go below deck.

When the weather was calm, sailing was incredibly fun. We snorkeled in the Tobago Cays, played paddle tennis on Palm Island, and spent New Year’s Eve on Petite St. Vincent, dancing until dawn to a steel kettle band. On many an evening, I enjoyed chatting at length with John about his life in the Navy during WWII. John had been part of the Normandy invasion on D-Day and his story was a truly harrowing one. Like John, my dad had been a young naval officer in the Pacific during the war and for that reason, I had an impressive knowledge of, and interest in, naval history. I’m quite sure chatting about WWII with a twenty-one-year-old college girl was a new experience for John.

Before we flew home, John shook my hand and said Dear, if business school is in your future, I want you to think about joining Goldman Sachs.

Having absolutely no interest in business, much less applying to business school, I immediately replied, John, if you ever organize another family sailing trip, I would be honored to once again be your bridge partner.

Anne and me sunbathing on the deck of the Naraina.

Assistant Captain Bligh Whitehead at the helm of the Naraina.

CHAPTER 2

Everything Happens for a Reason

Between my junior and senior year in college, I came back to New York and got a job working in my hometown, Hastings-on-Hudson, as a bookkeeper’s assistant at Saint Andrew’s Golf Club, the oldest men’s golf club in America. Years earlier, my dad had been a member of the club, but it was my mom who finagled the job interview. I loved working at St. Andrew’s because the members were incredibly friendly and engaging.

After graduating from Wheaton in June of ‘74, I was offered a job at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Washington. Sadly, the position only paid $2,400 a year so I headed back to St. Andrew’s, this time to work in the Pro Shop. Throughout the summer, I sold golf clothes, arranged tee times, and played golf with some of the younger members, who were ten years older than I was.

Toward the end of the summer, Dan Crowley, one of my dad’s good friends from Hastings and a long-standing member at St. Andrew’s, stopped by the Pro Shop and told me that I was too smart to work at a golf club. Dan suggested that I apply to business school, and not just any run-of-the-mill business school, but to Columbia Graduate School of Business, which was his alma mater. I told him I didn’t see myself going to business school and if I did, I would prefer to apply to George Washington University to be close to some of my friends who had moved to DC. Dan was the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration at McGraw-Hill and reported directly to the President, Harold McGraw.

On August 5th, Dan wrote me a letter on McGraw-Hill stationery:

Dear Janet:

I took the liberty of writing Dean Volpp that you are thinking seriously of making application to the Graduate School of Business. Lots of luck to you. If I can be of any help, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Dan Crowley

And Dan didn’t stop there. After my summer job at the club ended, he offered me a job at McGraw-Hill. While I appreciated his offer, I had no desire to commute into the city every day. Dismissing my objections, Dan welcomed me to McGraw-Hill’s Department of Corporate Economics and Financial Planning, at a salary of $175 a week.

I hadn’t taken a single economics course in college but wrote the following job description on my resume:

I assist Dr. Gordon W. McKinley, Senior Vice President and Economist, with the management of McGraw-Hill’s four major pension funds. My job responsibilities include statistical analysis of stock holdings, market conditions, and a thorough review of trustee transaction and asset reports.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Dan created my role at McGraw-Hill to give me every possible shot at getting into Columbia Business School.

That fall, I took the GMAT and submitted my application. Dan had gotten several club members to write letters of recommendation, including E.C. (Ernie) Beebe. After I left St. Andrew’s for McGraw-Hill, I wrote Ernie a note thanking him for his sage advice and guidance. He wrote me a handwritten letter back and it was a classic.

Dear Janet,

Your note was thoughtful — thank you. I hope we will not lose touch. Saint Andrew’s needs a pretty girl with a sunny disposition. While we miss you, I am sure you made the right decision and I hope it works out to your best expectations — that is if you don’t get married in the meantime and I wouldn’t bet on that not happening.

Sincerely,

Ernest Beebe

Shortly thereafter, I got a letter from the Office of Admissions at Columbia. After reviewing my application, several members of the admissions staff wanted me to come in for a personal interview.

I have almost perfect recall of my interview that day because it was awful. Joyce Cornell, the Assistant Director of Admissions, shared with me that no one had ever applied to the business school with GMAT scores as low as mine. I countered by saying that I would be a superb candidate regardless of my board scores because I planned on majoring in Economics and Public Policy, thereby combining my experience at McGraw-Hill with my undergraduate degree in government. This was not the response Joyce wanted to hear—she wanted me to quietly withdraw my application because it was obvious that I was not Columbia b-school material. If this had been a poker game, she would have called my bluff but with Dan Crowley as my wingman, she folded her cards and ended the meeting.

A few weeks later, I got a letter from Joyce informing me that I had been accepted on one condition: that I get the business school equivalent of the witch’s broom. I had to take two graduate level math courses and get an A in both for no course credit in order to be admitted. I couldn’t afford the course tuition unless I continued to work full-time and take classes at night, which is precisely what I did.

Throughout the summer, I attended grad school for two hours a night, twice a week, and worked at St. Andrew’s every weekend in the pro shop, selling clothes and helping the pro organize club tournaments.

After receiving an A in both math courses, I was granted admission and moved into my dormitory in January 1976. Given that I was thoroughly unprepared for b-school, I should have known that spending weekends back in Hastings playing paddle tennis was not very smart.

On February 16, I wrote in my diary:

I failed my accounting exam. Christ, do I feel stupid. Going forward, goofing off on weekends is not an option. I have to buckle down and study because otherwise, I won’t make it through my first semester.

Now that I was spending most weekends on campus, I soon fell madly in love with one of my classmates, Frank Lockhart. Originally from Peoria, Illinois, Frank got his BA in Russian Area Studies at Pomona College. GQ-handsome, Frank loved to beat me at chess and play melodic tunes on his mandolin. My best gal pal at Columbia was Carolyn Buck, a Georgetown grad who had majored in Russian. Rounding out the group was Gaetano (Guy) Muzio, a Boston College econ major who grew up in New Haven.

March 8:

Frank and Guy and Carolyn and I had such a pisser last week–just one huge party–fantastic!

That summer, Frank and Carolyn took the semester off to work in Russia. By then, Frank and I had moved out of our respective dorms and were living together in an apartment on West 113th Street, a move that turned out to be short-lived.

September 15:

Carolyn and Frank are both back from Russia. Frank is living in 3R—I moved upstairs to 4R—we’re friends but only friends. Had a big showdown before he left for Russia—it was all so stupid—Frank and I were in no way right for each other. So friends we now are. If it’s a great loss–it’s news to me. Anyway, tonight is probably the most important night of my life—I am interviewing with Goldman Sachs for an internship starting in January—if I can clinch it, my future will be signed, sealed, and delivered.

September 26:

The job is in the bag!

On November 6, John Whitehead sent me a personal note:

Dear Janet:

That’s good news that you’re joining us in January. The project sounds sufficiently formidable, and I think you’ll like the environment. Come say hello after you get settled.

Sincerely,

John Whitehead

Incredibly, John’s letter was written just three days after Gus Levy, the firm’s senior partner, died suddenly at the age of sixty-six. John would become the firm’s co-senior partner, along with his good friend and colleague, John Weinberg. Throughout their reign they would be fondly referred to as the two Johns.

On January 3, 1977, I arrived at Goldman’s NYC headquarters at 55 Broad Street to start my internship. For the next five months, I worked for economists Rosanne Hersh and Gary Wenglowski in Economic Research. Their colleagues in the Research Department included the visionary Leon Cooperman, along with Bill Kealy, Bob Giordano, and Rich Worley. My duties included industry studies, economic forecasting, and econometrics, all of which I was really lousy at given that I had no quant skills to speak of. Rosanne, knowing that John Whitehead had personally blessed my internship, gave me free rein to come and go as I pleased, which is exactly what I did.

Most days I would sneak off to the library during my lunch hour and go straight to the G aisle where there were dozens of files stuffed with newspaper clippings and magazine articles about Goldman’s history. I would take the articles out of the files, spread them out on the floor and pour through them, one by one.

My favorite was a 1969 Investment Dealers’ Digest article titled Goldman Sachs Celebrates Its First 100 Years. Founded by Marcus Goldman in 1869, Goldman Sachs began operation in a