Neema and Padi Raphael are siblings — and companions at Goldman Sachs.
Neema is the chief knowledge officer; Padi is the worldwide cohead of third-party wealth in asset administration.
They shared the story of rising alongside one another at certainly one of Wall Road’s most demanding companies.
One latest afternoon at 200 West Road, Goldman Sachs accomplice Padi Raphael was strolling a consumer towards the elevator on the financial institution’s New York headquarters when the doorways opened. Out stepped Goldman’s chief knowledge officer.
The timing could not have been higher. The consumer had been asking for the prospect to fulfill him.
It additionally meant Padi was coming face-to-face with the coworker she calls her “greatest buddy”: her brother.
What makes the second on the elevator so uncommon is not simply that Padi and Neema Raphael are siblings. It is that each have risen to change into companions at Goldman, putting them amongst roughly 500 folks at a agency of roughly 49,000.
They now steer components of the agency which are important to its future.
Padi, 47, is the worldwide cohead of the third-party wealth enterprise at Goldman Sachs Asset Administration, having constructed her profession in markets and client-facing roles throughout Europe and Asia. She’s middle ring in a sizzling sector for the agency, working with broker-dealers, personal banks, and funding advisors to draw extra rich shoppers.
Goldman Sachs companions Neema and Padi Raphael (third and fourth from proper), in Hong Kong, the place Padi was beforehand based mostly.Courtesy of Goldman Sachs
Neema, 44, rose by way of the tech enterprise and now leads a whole bunch of engineers who work on the financial institution’s knowledge and AI methods. His function is central to Goldman’s push into synthetic intelligence, a precedence for CEO David Solomon.
“Our shoppers have an enormous urge for food for listening to his insights on all issues data-related,” Padi advised Enterprise Insider in a joint interview together with her brother. For years, she joked, Neema was recognized internally as Padi’s youthful brother. Now, the shorthand has flipped.
The elevator encounter captured the weird convergence of two careers that had spent a long time operating in parallel — for many of their time at Goldman, the siblings labored in numerous divisions and on totally different continents. Solely not too long ago did they start exhibiting as much as the identical workplace.
They shared with Enterprise Insider an intimate have a look at how they navigated their rise.
The Raphael siblings grew up in Los Angeles, the youngsters of Iranian immigrants who emphasised the significance of training. Their mother and father collectively maintain three grasp’s levels and a Ph.D.
“We made training and studying a precedence, and inspired curiosity, reasoning, and discourse,” their mother and father, Nora Ghodsian and Bijan Raphael, stated through e mail.
Rising up, neither imagined a profession in monetary companies. Padi studied neuroscience at UCLA. Neema went on to review pc science on the College of California, Berkeley.
Padi arrived at Goldman first, nearly by chance. A mentor inspired her to speak to the agency, telling her it will train her issues she had but to be taught. She joined in 1999 as an analyst, after a hiring course of she nonetheless remembers as grueling.
Padi together with her youthful brother Neema. The siblings are each companions at Goldman Sachs.Courtesy of Goldman Sachs
“I might fly in, do 12 interviews, after which fly again house,” Padi, who was nonetheless dwelling on the West Coast on the time, stated. The agency did this thrice — greater than 30 interviews in complete — a course of she later suspected was a check of endurance.
She spent her first yr in New York in asset administration earlier than relocating to London in 2000, the place she moved into fairness derivatives gross sales on the buying and selling flooring and constructed a profession there.
Just a few years later, her brother known as.
After school, Neema was eager to use his tech coaching to a real-world enterprise like Goldman. He requested his sister if she may assist him get a foot within the door.
Padi could not promise greater than introductions, however agreed to flow into his résumé. She additionally supplied recommendation: “Be your self and be considerate and present them your work,” Neema recalled her telling him. He acquired the job, becoming a member of the expertise division as an analyst in 2003.
Padi Raphael and her youthful brother, Neema, grew up in Los Angeles.Courtesy of Goldman Sachs
5 years later, on the top of the monetary disaster, Neema’s group helped Goldman assess its publicity shortly as a result of his group had helped digitize key methods. The trouble earned an inner award usually reserved for dealmakers — and cemented his concentrate on the intersection of knowledge and finance.
Early in his profession, his supervisor requested if he would think about shifting to Tokyo. Not sure what the request meant for his prospects on the financial institution, Neema known as his sister. Her response was swift and definitive.
“You must try this,” she advised him. “That is a no brainer.”
Padi inspired him, she stated, as a result of she believed that “any journey, any alternative to broaden your perspective in regards to the world, about folks, in regards to the enterprise” was price taking.
Whereas the siblings’ careers unfolded in very totally different components of the agency, they continued evaluating notes. Making accomplice was the subsequent milestone.
Padi was named a accomplice in 2016. Her profession had taken her from the equities buying and selling flooring throughout the Dot-com bust to getting back from maternity go away throughout the recession, to navigating the European monetary disaster in London, and to experiencing the coronavirus pandemic in Hong Kong.
4 years later, it was Neema’s flip. He grew to become a accomplice in 2020, which Padi stated marked the primary yr he was into consideration. The function introduced a shift: better visibility inside a agency the place knowledge and expertise had change into more and more central.
In 2022, Padi moved again to New York after practically a decade in Hong Kong.
“Coming again house to the US was a pure alternative for our rising household,” she stated. And it got here as Solomon and his deputy, President and COO John Waldron, have been combining Goldman’s asset and wealth administration companies. The 2 leaders have been “looking for to strengthen our asset administration enterprise’ consumer management group with seasoned companions from across the agency,” she added.
For a stretch, Padi and her household stayed with Neema and his household. They typically headed to the workplace collectively.
Exterior work, the siblings’ closeness is unmistakable. Padi has three kids — two youngsters and a kindergartener — whereas Neema is elevating a younger household, together with a four-year-old and a new child. Their youngsters are greatest pals, they stated, and Friday nights are reserved for Shabbat dinners, with each households gathering to mark the tip of the week collectively.
That dynamic was on show at Goldman’s annual winter gathering in Miami for its international companions, the place the agency fills a wall with the names of each accomplice it has ever named. Like everybody else in attendance, the Raphael siblings went in quest of theirs. A stylistic break within the show left Neema’s identify on the finish of 1 part, and Padi’s at first of one other.
They tracked each down and snapped selfies in entrance of every — a quiet marker of two careers that ran in parallel for 20 years earlier than converging on the prime.
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