Indian-Origin Executive Becomes Youngest Goldman Sachs Partner

Wall Street's most famous firm Goldman Sachs has promoted Kunal Shah, 32, to the coveted role of 'Partner'. The Indian-origin executive, who is currently a managing director at Goldman, is the youngest in the investment giant's most coveted club.

Goldman now has 467 partners, an elite group, representing about 1.6 per cent of its 33,500-strong workforce. The position of Partner brings with it some of the biggest Wall Street perks including a lucrative paycheck with salaries of about $900,000 and a portion of the bank's bonus pool which is divided up among only the partners. The Partners also have access to special investment opportunities that are not available to other employees.

However, the record for becoming the youngest Goldman Sachs Partner is held by Eric Mindich who was promoted in 1994 at the age of 27.

Mr Shah is among the 78 individuals to be promoted to this position, and is one of the five persons of Indian-origin to have made the cut in Goldman Sachs in 2014 class of Partners. Goldman Sachs selects its partners every two years through an extremely secretive and rigorous months-long selection process.

Mr Shah was promoted to managing director at the investment banking giant at the age of 27. The Cambridge University math graduate was also named in Forbes '30 under 30' Finance list in 2011.

He has been a rising star at Goldman since he joined the company in London in 2004, analysing interest rate products, before trading on the global macro desk, according to Forbes.

The other persons of Indian-origin named to the firm's elite group are Meena Lakdawala Flynn, Manikandan Natarajan, Umesh Subramanian and Rajesh Venkataramani.

"These appointments recognise some of the firm's most senior professionals and acknowledge their embodiment of our culture and values, and their leadership of the firm's business and people," Goldman Sachs Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement. "We look forward to their continued strong performance and leadership in the years ahead."

The 2014 class of Partners includes 11 women, 23 employees from investment banking, 25 from securities, 11 from investment management, four from merchant banking and three from research.

They will become Partners of the firm starting January 1 next year.