Goldman Sachs' latest London hires reflect its priorities now

Goldman Sachs may be trimming its headcount as part of its annual cull of poor performers, but it is also hiring. In the past month the firm has recruited at least three executive directors and managing directors to its London business. The new additions suggest the bank's strategic priorities in 2019.

Two of the hires are in the quant or data space(s). The firm hired Giuliano De Rossi, formerly the head of European quantitative strategy at Macquarie, as an executive director. It's not entirely clear what De Rossi will be doing at Goldman, but at Macquarie he was working on systems that included machine learning programmes to help pick stocks.

Another London executive director level hire was Paola Cereghino, who joined this month after 22 years at JPMorgan. Again, Cereghino's Goldman role isn't clarified, but at JPMorgan she was most recently the head of market data for the bank's applications.

The third recent big Goldman hire joined the London private equity business. The firm recruited Patrick Ordynans, who previously spent nearly six years as a managing director at Alcentra, an asset management firm focused on sub-investment grade corporate debt. At Alcentra, Ordynans was responsible for DACHS (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) coverage. His arrival at Goldman in London suggests the firm wants to increase its penetration of the German direct lending market, which is notoriously difficult to penetrate given German corporates' reliance on traditional bank loans.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)