"It's not about how many gray hairs you have. It's not about who you know. It's been about what you bring." - Kunal Shah [00:01:48]
"I kind of had this itch to actually join the business and not just be in this risk-taking market focused group that sat on the corner..." - Kunal Shah [00:04:08]
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"We need our people, especially those that are very tech-savvy outside of the office, to come in and just find different ways of making their own jobs more productive..." - Kunal Shah [00:10:18]
"Any LLM of your choice can give someone a nice market wrap... there's no edge in that anymore. So you have to come with some unique insights..." - Kunal Shah [00:12:04]
"Of course, you can look at someone's CV and see that they've got excellence, but really looking at that book smarts and that intuition is I think something that you can only really see in terms of how someone behaves." - Kunal Shah [00:20:35]
"I think that shared ownership of the senior levels of the firm, that interconnected nature across our different offices and businesses just means our approach whilst everyone is focused on how to remain at the front, it's done in a very team oriented way." - Kunal Shah [00:23:29]
Speakers & Credentials
Joe Cass: Senior Director at S&P Global Ratings and Host of the "Leaders with Joseph Cass" podcast.
Kunal Shah: Co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International & Global Co-Head of FICC (Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities). He began his career as an intern at Goldman Sachs, transitioning from a proprietary trading desk to building the emerging markets franchise, ultimately becoming one of the youngest Managing Directors in the firm's history at the age of 27.
1. Executive Summary
This briefing unpacks the leadership framework and career trajectory of Kunal Shah, Co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International, detailing his rare ascent from a 10-week summer intern to becoming one of the youngest Managing Directors in the firm's history at just 27 years old.
Shah actively debunks the myth of isolated, cutthroat banking environments, explaining that a critical engine to Goldman Sachs’ success is the "cross-roughing" consensus model, maintaining its historical partnership culture despite being a public company for over 26 years.
A key macro-thesis explored is the commoditization of information; Shah argues that large language models (LLMs) have erased the baseline "edge" in market knowledge, forcing successful financial leaders to lead with highly differentiated insights and "alpha" rooted in proprietary client flows and deep relationships.
The discussion highlights the sheer scale of the Co-CEO mandate, revealing how Shah balances strategic oversight for a region comprising 10,000 employees across 29 offices alongside maintaining global divisional responsibilities in fixed income.
The briefing delves into the granular realities of emerging markets trading, the psychological resilience required to maintain career longevity over 22 years, and how foundational credit ratings from agencies like S&P act as undeniable catalysts for major global capital allocations, particularly evident in the multi-billion dollar Middle Eastern issuance boom.
2. Chronological Table of Contents
[00:00:44] - Becoming the Youngest Ever Managing Director at 27
[00:05:08] - Dual Mandates: The Day-to-Day Life of a Co-CEO
[00:07:06] - The Client Landscape: Liquidity, Geopolitics, and Crypto
[00:09:48] - Deploying the "GS AI Assistant" Across the Enterprise
[00:10:25] - Fostering Unfiltered Truth and High-Alpha Relationships
[00:12:51] - Sovereign Mechanics: S&P Ratings as a Gateway to Capital Markets
[00:16:00] - Inside the EM Trading Desk: Fluidity and Global Information Flow
[00:17:45] - The Psychology of the Trader: Sleep, Recovery, and Resilience
[00:19:37] - Modern Talent Recruitment: Moving Beyond Book Smarts
[00:22:23] - Dispelling the "Cutthroat" Wall Street Myth
[00:24:07] - Philanthropic Impact: Chairing the EMPower Foundation
[00:26:13] - Cinematic Finance vs. Reality & Alternate Career Paths
3. Detailed Thematic Summary
Early Career Acceleration & The "Meritocratic Culture" [00:00:44]
The Power of the Prop Desk: Shah attributes his rapid career trajectory to an early start on a mythical global macro proprietary trading desk under the mentorship of Dris Benhee [00:02:27]. Despite working alongside seasoned traders in their 40s and 50s, he was given his own book and significant autonomy early on, an invaluable foundation he built upon between 2004 and 2007 [00:03:03].
Strategic Risk-Taking in 2007: Against popular advice, Shah chose to leave the lucrative, pure risk-taking prop desk to build a new emerging markets franchise on the fixed-income side in 2007 [00:03:38]. At the time, the space was empty following the late-90s Russia default [00:03:49]. By 2010, three years after hitting the ground running and navigating the financial crisis, this calculated risk solidified into a strong presence, acting as the primary catalyst for his early promotion to MD [00:04:20].
The "Cross-Roughing" Nomination: Shah was initially completely oblivious to the intense, internal "cross-roughing" promotion process, discovering he made Managing Director at age 27 only when his boss, Ge Sedenberg, physically walked onto the trading floor to shake his hand [00:01:15].
The Architectural Scale of a Co-CEO Mandate [00:05:08]
Regional Scale vs. Global Division: Over the past year, Shah and his Co-CEO Anthony Gutman have overseen Goldman Sachs International (GSI) [00:05:18]. GSI operates as a global broker-dealer, managing an enterprise footprint of nearly 10,000 employees distributed across 29 different regional offices [00:05:49].
A Continuous Client Flywheel: Shah's schedule is relentless, seamlessly merging wealth management, corporate relations, and hedge funds. In a single 24-hour period, he dined with a credit hedge fund CIO, addressed several hundred commodity investors, and met with a significant prospective IPO client [00:07:32].
The Client Zeitgeist: Current dialogue with ultra-high-net-worth and institutional clients centers around a "changing new world order," huge liquidity born from monetary stimulus clashing with high market valuations, the geopolitical impacts on portfolios, and the structural debate between financial assets, non-fiat (gold/crypto), and technology (AI) capex sustainability [00:08:10].
Artificial Intelligence and Generating Genuine Alpha [00:09:48]
The "GS AI Assistant": To prevent top-down bottlenecking, Goldman Sachs rolled out a compliant, internally firewalled platform called the "GS AI Assistant" to allow low-level, grassroots experimentation across the firm's entire workforce [00:09:59].
The Commoditization of Baseline Information: Shah emphatically notes that because any standard Large Language Model can generate an accurate, baseline market summary ("market wrap"), there is zero competitive edge left in simply knowing the news [00:12:04].
Leading with Differentiated Content: To combat this democratization, modern executives and traders must bring "alpha" through unique insights drawn from global deal flows, hidden market volumes, and proprietary relationship networks that LLMs simply cannot index [00:12:29].
The Macro Mechanics of S&P Sovereign Credit Ratings [00:12:51]
A Prerequisite for Global Capital: Shah highlights that credit ratings are not just advisory but a rigid fundamental prerequisite for entering international capital markets [00:13:22].
The South Africa Case Study: During Shah's trading career, he heavily monitored the active debates around South Africa's downgrade from investment grade, initiated by S&P in 2017 [00:13:44]. He noted that these ratings acted as external checks and balances directly impacting the domestic fiscal policy decisions of the nation's finance minister and president [00:14:08].
Catalyzing the Middle Eastern Boom: Roughly a decade ago, the first major sovereign issuance from the KSA hit the market. Because of their highly-rated composite, they attracted a massive investor base, comparing them to G20 nations and US tech firms rather than typical EM risk [00:15:17]. This foundation catalyzed what is now "tens of billions" in continuous quasi-sovereign (PIF, Aramco, Saudi banks) issuance [00:15:50].
Circadian Rhythms of the Trading Desk: There is no typical day, but a constant baseline exists: waking up and immediately checking macro indicators (Dollar/Yen, Euro/Dollar, S&P futures), and digesting the overnight Asian time-zone movements (e.g., JGBs, Nikkei, RMB fix) to set the tone for the upcoming European and US sessions [00:16:22].
Sleep and Longevity: Surviving over 22 years at Goldman Sachs requires psychological resilience. Shah relies on a highly trusted, globally distributed team to manage overnight risk so he can protect his sleep recovery [00:18:38]. He notes he only breaks this protocol for major systemic events, such as driving to the office at 1:00 AM during the Brexit vote and US elections [00:19:23].
Hiring for Intuition over Pedigree: Moving beyond basic STEM dominance, trading firms are heavily focused on recruiting for "intuition" and grit under pressure. Goldman Sachs uses the 10-week internship not just to test "book smarts," but to observe how candidates physically and mentally react to real-time information flow in high-stress environments [00:20:50]. Old "brain teasers" (like fitting golf balls in a 747) have been completely abandoned in favor of real situational assessments [00:21:04].
Debunking the "Cutthroat" Myth: Despite being a public company for 26 years, Goldman maintains its original private partnership structure via interconnected committee systems, demanding highly collegiate behavior rather than isolated, aggressive maneuvering to reach leadership consensus [00:23:10].
The Reference Vault
4. Data & Figures
Data Point
Value
Context
Timestamp
Promotion Age
27 Years Old
Shah became one of the youngest Managing Directors in Goldman Sachs history.
The "Cross-Roughing" Evaluation Framework [00:01:15]: An intense, deeply integrated internal nominations and evaluation process at Goldman Sachs used to vet candidates for promotion. This ensures that success is determined by multi-directional, meritocratic consensus rather than just linear, direct-manager approval.
The Unfiltered Feedback Doctrine [00:10:56]: As leaders gain altitude, they naturally become insulated. The framework requires executives to proactively build environments where juniors feel safe bringing raw, critical information (the "unsanitized version") to leadership, allowing the business to rapidly identify blind spots.
Alpha Generation via Differentiated Content [00:12:29]: In an era where AI immediately democratizes baseline knowledge, the mental model for client relationship building dictates that standard reporting provides zero value. A successful operator must lead conversations exclusively with proprietary flow data, unique network access, and non-consensus opinions to maintain leverage.
6. Anecdotes
The 2007 Leap into the Unknown [00:03:38]: Shah recounts facing heavy skepticism when he decided to abandon his comfortable, high-status proprietary trading seat to start the emerging markets franchise in 2007. This counter-intuitive pivot through the 2008 financial crisis proved to be the ultimate growth vehicle for his rapid ascent to Managing Director.
Advising Heads of State on Ratings [00:14:08]: Shah tells the story of trading South African sovereign bonds around 2017 during severe downgrade pressures. He highlights how the financial mechanics translated into the real world when the nation's Finance Minister and President directly engaged with him to understand how global rating agencies would dictate domestic fiscal reality.
The 1:00 AM Crisis Commute [00:19:23]: To illustrate the necessary balance of sleep optimization vs. extreme crisis response on the trading floor, Shah recalls physically jumping into his car to arrive at the office at 1:00 AM during monumental binary events—specifically the Brexit vote and intense US Elections—showcasing when delegation ends and execution begins.
The Alternate Universe: Coding and Architecture [00:27:58]: Reflecting on alternative life paths, Shah reveals he side-hustled as a web coder during the peak of the dot-com boom. He ultimately chose math over computer science but jokingly admits that an alternate reality in heavy tech or pursuing his passion for micromanaging architectural property renovations could have been his path had he not found his true calling in finance.
7. References & Recommendations
Companies & Institutions: Goldman Sachs, S&P Global Ratings, EMPower Foundation.
People: Joe Cass (Host), Anthony Gutman (Co-CEO, GSI), Ge Sedenberg, Ashoke Varadan, Dris Benhee, Andrew Balls (PIMCO CIO).
Technologies & Tools: GS AI Assistant (Internal Goldman Sachs AI), Large Language Models (LLMs).
Media & Pop Culture: Industry (TV Series), Wall Street (Film), The Boiler Room (Film), Billions (TV Series).
Financial Vehicles / Entities & Concepts: PIF (Public Investment Fund), Aramco, Saudi Banks, JGBs (Japanese Government Bonds), Nikkei, WGBI (World Government Bond Index), RMB Fix (Renminbi fix).
Jul 16, 2026
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Co-CEO Tenure
~1 Year
Time since stepping into the formal Co-CEO role of GSI.