Goldman Sachs MD to parents of neurodiverse children: "You're not alone"
When Jack McFerran, a Goldman Sachs managing director and the London-based head of equity sales, organized a "parents evening" last year for his clients and colleagues, it wasn't a standard Goldman event. McFerran, who's neurodiverse himself and who is the parent of a neurodiverse child, set out to convene other parents in similar situations to discuss parenting their young people. The response was unexpectedly phenomenal.
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"600 people attended," says McFerran of the first London event. "They came with wives, with their husbands and partners."
The London parents evening was so successful that Goldman organised another in New York in the fourth quarter of last year. That time, 900 people accepted the invitation; 200 came as part of a couple. "We had the heads of one the largest hedge funds and one of the largest trading institutions flying in with their spouses,” says McFerran. Goldman president John Waldron hosted; three Goldman Partners personally funded the event. “It was amazing to be in a room full of people going through the same thing," McFerran recalls.
Almost by accident, McFerran and Goldman had stumbled on a huge and untapped need. The financial services industry is known to attract people with conditions like ADHD and autism. The heritability of these traits means it's unsurprising that many financial services professionals are also raising neurodiverse children, but nobody had been talking about it. Invitees to the London event were contacted initially by email, and McFerran says they responded with an "outpouring of emotion." - "People who’d been on this journey alone emailed us back with their own stories; the head of one the world’s largest institutions wrote back saying how difficult things had been for his daughter." After frank panel discussions, parents lingered, chatting and drinking wine. And when it was over, McFerran says the feedback was that, "people couldn't believe that Goldman was doing this, that they were thankful of the opportunity, and that they didn’t feel so alone."
Banks already focus on hiring employees with ADHD and autism as part of their diversity programs. - In 2019, Goldman set itself a target of 1% neurodiversity among its employees, and the firm launched an eight week paid internship for neurodiverse students in the US last year. JPMorgan has run programs to hire autistic people for at least a decade. Goldman's "parents evenings" are a new phenomenon, though - they're about helping financial services professionals parent their neurodiverse children through what can be challenging years.
Multiple studies say young people's mental health problems have proliferated since the pandemic and neurodiverse children are particularly likely to experience mental health issues. In 2023, Caitlyn Scott Lee, the autistic daughter of HSBC executive Jonathan Scott Lee, who himself has autism and ADHD, committed suicide at a British boarding school. Her father now campaigns to raise awareness of the link between autism and self harm. "Her autism sometimes made it more difficult for her to interact socially or truly cognise proportionality," he told the Times last year.
McFerran says Goldman's parents evenings work because they're a place of honesty and openness. “The really important thing is to get front office leaders to stand up and talk about being neurodiverse or parenting neurodiverse children, and to be vulnerable. If these people stand up and acknowledge it’s a bit tough, others will too.” Simply being in the company of people facing the same thing can be a source of comfort. - McFerran conceived the idea after attending an "amazingly supportive" monthly Goldman Sachs' parent group. "Ten of us who are the parents of neurodiverse children would talk about how good or bad the month had been and how difficult it can be parenting a neurodiverse child having a breakdown. Sometimes, there were tears,” he recalls.
Goldman isn't just running parents evenings, though. It's also begun running regular meetings with heads of DEI at buyside firms to spread the message.
“After the London event, we ran a lunch for the heads of DEI from multiple firms on the buyside. We had 18 buyside heads in the office to discuss which corporate policies help neurodiverse employees and the parents of neurodiverse children,” says Shefali Gera, Goldman's EMEA head of talent strategy. Like McFerran, Gera says simply naming the issue has had a snowball effect. And as parents across the industry become aware that their children are neurodiverse, they're coming to realize that they're neurodiverse too. "Parents are getting their children tested and... then getting themselves tested, which is leading to their own diagnosis,” Gera adds. “When people see that leaders are open to conversations and inclusive, when they take a chance and are able to share, then others will reach out."
It's a new and welcome era of vulnerability. McFerran says attendees at the parents evenings, "were coming to Goldman Sachs in a very different way."
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