On the lacrosse field at Duke University, Madison Crutchfield’s coach encouraged her to “play fast, not hurried.”
Today, that advice has become a guiding light in her job working on Goldman’s fast-paced trading floor, where she says it applies to everything from executing an order to meeting a project deadline.
“That’s really transferable in the world of sales and trading, where there’s usually some ‘game clock’ ticking,” said Crutchfield, a vice president in equity derivative sales at the behemoth bank. “Having the ability to be efficient but not rushed is a critical edge.”
Her story is emblematic of why athletes — trained in grit, resilience, competition, and teamwork — have become a key talent pipeline and recruiting pool for Goldman. The bank has even recruited beyond the college ranks, hiring former NFL star Justin Tuck in 2018 and promoting him to managing director in 2022.
“It is a way to differentiate yourself,” Jacqueline Arthur, Goldman’s head of human capital management, told Business Insider. “These qualities are not just transferable but powerful and directly applicable to the dynamic environment of financial services.”
Simply put: Being an athlete is a way to get a leg up and stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape. Goldman, for example, received more than 300,000 applications for its 2024 summer internships, leading to an acceptance rate of less than 1%.
To understand why athletes tend to do well both getting into and ultimately working at Goldman, Business Insider spoke with Ryan Held, an Olympic swimmer who now works in Goldman’s cyber risk group; Sara Naison-Tarajano, a partner in private wealth management and former Yale tennis captain, and Arthur and Crutchfield.
They described how sports helped them land jobs at Goldman, what skills they developed in matches, games, and meets that have helped them in their demanding Wall Street careers, and why the firm views athletes as a competitive advantage.
Why Goldman wants athletes
Crutchfield said being a student athlete gave her an edge when she was applying for sales and trading internships in college.
“Lacrosse conditioned in me a mindset and temperament that I leaned on throughout the networking, the application, and when it came to it, the interviewing stages,” she said, “I draw on these intangibles — such as the need to think quickly on my feet, to stay resourceful, and to be a self-starter — every day.”
Wall Street hiring managers have long advised going into interviews with a hook — something memorable that makes you stand out. The people who spoke to Business Insider for this story agreed that sports can play that role and demonstrate qualities you might need for the job.
“Grit, resilience, collaboration, leadership — as we think about the different demonstrable ways that candidates could express these things, certainly we’ve seen success in this venue,” Arthur said.
Crutchfield took it a step further, explaining that the word “athlete” can also represent a cultural ideal at Goldman.
“We often talk about being an ‘athlete’ at the firm, not to point out employees who were former sports athletes per se, but really to describe teammates who are versatile leaders,” she said, adding that it can also be used to describe someone who “process of continual improvement make them a total weapon on the trading floor,” Crutchfield said.
“In terms of mindset and work ethic, I would argue I’ve met so many more athletes at Goldman than I ever did playing sports,” she said.
Turning game skills into job skills
Sara Naison-Tarajano’s Goldman story began on the tennis courts at Yale. She planned to become a lawyer until conversations with friends and coaches — including a bond trader she practiced with one summer — pointed her toward Wall Street.
“People around me started to say, ‘Look, you have some attributes that would be really interesting in this world,'” she said. “You are very focused. You work as hard as anyone. You’re disciplined, you like to win, you’re competitive.”
Now, as a hiring manager and global head of private wealth management capital markets, Naison-Tarajano has also learned that athletes take direction like a champ.
“To be a good athlete, you have to be able to take very specific, very nuanced direction,” she said. “I think that translates well to most professional environments, but particularly something like Wall Street, where it’s a bit of learning on the job.”
It can also help with time management, said Held, a Division-1 swimmer at North Carolina State University who went on to win Olympic gold at the Rio Games in 2016 and competed again in 2024.
“When you’re in college, you have to balance athletics, you have to balance academics, and then your own personal life,” said Held.
And it helps you deal with losing.
“A bad swim, bad season — how do you bounce back?,” said Held, adding, “I think those are all great skills to have.”
“I think sports teach you how to win and lose,” Crutchfield added. “Seasons are marathons, not sprints, and you quickly learn not to get too high or too low — staying even-keeled and patient is a must in order to stay focused.”
Advantage point
Arthur said Goldman’s interest in athletes is less of an explicit recruiting mandate and more of a pattern that has emerged as a byproduct of the qualities Goldman is looking for in young hires.
“We’re not tracking if somebody’s an athlete or not. We’re tracking — do we think that they have these qualities?” she said.
“There are a lot of other ways to demonstrate strategic thinking, leadership, communication, collaboration, and teamwork,” she said, adding, “but this is one that’s very attractive and clearly has gone on to serve these people incredibly well.”
As Goldman hires more athletes, it can give other athletes an advantage in networking, which is how Held landed at Goldman Sachs.
After the 2024 Olympics, he began to explore life beyond competitive swimming. Held reached out to a former high-level swimmer who works at Goldman for advice on transitioning from athletics to the corporate world. That person introduced him to two more Goldman employees, who shared more connections still.
Eventually, the string of networking helped him understand more about different areas of the bank and land a job as an analyst in cyber risk.
“There is so much more to the bank. And it opened my eyes to, oh, maybe the financial sector is a place that I could work and pursue, so maybe I should do a little bit of research,” he said.
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