Jamie Fiore Higgins on how to effect real change in the finance industry

Photographer: Julia Maloof Verderosa/Simon & Schuster

During her nearly two-decade career at Goldman Sachs, Jamie Fiore Higgins rose to become one of the few women managing directors at the firm, but her success came at a high cost. In her new memoir, Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs, Fiore Higgins details the culture of sexism that permeated the investment bank. That included everything from a discriminatory company culture that purposefully held back women and people of color, to out-of-control, lavish parties that flowed with never-ending drinks and rampant drug use. (Goldman Sachs has denied Fiore Higgins’s account.)

Fiore Higgins recounts stories of harassment and ugly behavior meant to demean and diminish her and her accomplishments: She was told by a coworker that she was only promoted because she was a woman, colleagues mooed at her after she pumped breast milk for her child, and she witnessed one of her bosses use a racial epithet without repercussions.

Check out my interview with Jamie Fire Higgins on Morning Brew’s website here.