Latest Interviews
Showing 721–735 of 757 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs13 min
Cornell Brooks, NAACP CEO: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Ronell Brooks, the 18th president of the NAACP and a fourth-generation AME minister, leverages a legacy of civil rights activism to address contemporary challenges such as police killings and the erosion of voting protections following *Shelby v. Holder*. Operating through a network of 2,000 volunteer-run branches, Brooks recently led thousands of miles of marches to advocate for criminal justice reform and the establishment of an affirmative constitutional right to vote. The organization currently prioritizes expanding voting access across diverse demographics by countering disenfranchisement tactics that disproportionately affect young people, minorities, and people with disabilities.
- Goldman Sachs13 min
Denise Lewis, Olympic Gold Medalist: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Multi-disciplinary athlete and presenter Denise Lewis leverages her resilient upbringing and a breakthrough Olympic heptathlon victory, achieved despite a severe Achilles injury, to advocate for substantive diversity in sports and media. She emphasizes that visible representation is critical for breaking generational cycles and ensuring that women and Black professionals secure opportunities based on merit rather than tokenism. By combining her personal narrative of overcoming early rejection and racial bias with her professional transition to television, Lewis encourages emerging talent to project confidence and "stick their heads above the parapet" to pave the way for future candidates.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Archbishop Justin Welby outlines a strategy for the non-hierarchical Anglican Communion focused on reconciliation and discipleship while addressing global crises ranging from religious persecution to the refugee emergency. The leadership highlights critical demographic shifts, noting a significant aging within the Church of England contrasted with a young, female, and Sub-Saharan majority in the wider Communion. To navigate these challenges, the church advocates for long-term economic engagement in host nations, improved inter-faith integrity against radicalization, and a renewed focus on practical love for the poor and enemies.
- Goldman Sachs13 min
Ross Kemp, Documentary Maker: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Former ITV actor Ross Kemp transitioned to documentary filmmaking after a pivotal interview in Compton revealed the human costs of gang violence, leading to the creation of the BAFTA-winning "Ross Kemp on Gangs" series. Operating a small, unarmed production team through Freshwater Films, Kemp relies on local fixers and hostile environment training to access dangerous zones, a methodology tested during tense confrontations with tribal leaders in Papua New Guinea and refugee camps in Calais. His current portfolio addresses child sexual exploitation, alcohol industry harms, and immigration integration, driven by a philosophy to reveal the social circumstances behind global headlines rather than exploiting fear.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
John Kufuor, Former President of the Republic of Ghana: Talks at GS Session Highlights
This address examines Ghana's pivotal role as the first independent sub-Saharan nation while detailing the economic transformation achieved between 2001 and 2009 through market-oriented reforms that stabilized currency, doubled cocoa output, and eliminated extreme poverty. The narrative highlights the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to heal decades of military instability, successfully restoring confiscated assets and ensuring political accountability. By contextualizing these domestic successes within the broader evolution of the African Union toward democratic governance, the speaker presents Ghana as a benchmark for continental progress toward transparency and sustainable development.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
John Amaechi, Former NBA Player, Author and Executive Coach: Talks at GS Session Highlights
After a stranger's unexpected encouragement led John to basketball despite zero prior experience, he overcame a catastrophic hand injury by retraining as an ambidextrous player. His career strategy evolved from a naive focus on athletic height to a disciplined approach designed to counteract his own laziness and align with a broader goal of becoming a psychologist. John now leverages his unique background to advocate for workplace inclusion, arguing that teams only achieve greatness when members feel safe revealing their full identities beyond their professional roles.
- Goldman Sachs12 min
Neil Berg, Composer, Lyricist and Producer: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Neil Berg, a playwright who abandoned a planned career in law to pursue musical theater after an emotional breakthrough during his university years, discusses the rigorous demands of the industry and the necessity of treating art as an unavoidable calling. His current project, the rock musical "The 12" about the apostles, won the 2015 Henry Award following a difficult collaborative evolution with Tony winner Robert Schenken that required discarding existing compositions to align on a strict book-first structure. Berg further outlines essential mechanics for musical storytelling, emphasizing that successful productions rely on the precise alignment of approximately 50 collaborators and the strategic use of opening songs to establish character desires within the first ten minutes.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Nick Bollettieri, Tennis Legend: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Nick Bollettieri, Antonio Estevez
Founded in 1978, the Bollettieri Tennis Academy established the world's first full-time boarding school model by fusing intensive court training with a military-inspired academic curriculum to cultivate elite athletes. Legendary coach Nick Bollettieri attributes the success of ten world number ones, including Serena and Venus Williams and Andre Agassi, to his psychological mastery and the evolving necessity of peak physical fitness in modern tennis. Bollettieri now asserts that while innate talent remains irreplaceable, contemporary dominance relies on multidisciplinary support teams and strategic adaptation to equipment changes.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Bob Colacello, Journalist: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Former *Vanity Fair* correspondent Bob Colacello recently presented his biographical works on Andy Warhol and the Reagans during a Goldman Sachs "Talks at GS" session, dissecting the strategic construction of Warhol's celebrity and Nancy Reagan's pivotal behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War diplomacy. Colacello reveals that Warhol leveraged his commercial art background and religious aesthetic knowledge to secularize icons like Marilyn Monroe, while simultaneously exposing how Nancy Reagan orchestrated the personal rapport between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that facilitated the Geneva summit. The presentation concludes by ranking Nancy Reagan among history's most influential first ladies, comparable to Edith Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt, for her quiet but decisive management of her husband's political agenda and inner circle.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
David Adjaye, Architect: Talks at GS Session Highlights
David Adjaye, Val Carlotti, Tim McGillen
Award-winning architect David Ajayi is designing the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, a 400,000-square-foot facility authorized by George W. Bush and set to open in Washington D.C. in 2016. The design rejects a fixed signature style in favor of an inverted pyramid silhouette inspired by West African shrines, positioning the museum as a narrative transition between the National Mall and the Washington Memorial grounds. This project embodies Ajayi's philosophy of "democracy of knowledge" by utilizing public structures to destigmatize community access while reframing the African-American experience as central to American identity.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
Kenneth Langone & Neal Goldman on Building Successful Relationships: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Kenneth Langone, Neal Goldman, Ken, Neil
Relationship Science (RELPSY) leverages a proprietary social graph to map connections between 4 million individuals and 1.5 million organizations, replacing manual networking with automated pathways for wealth management, private equity, and non-profit sectors. Building on the legacy of Capital IQ's data utility, the platform introduces event-to-opportunity triggers and personalized intelligence to facilitate strategic introductions based on real-time financial filings and news. While the tool eliminates the friction of identifying mutual contacts, its effectiveness remains contingent on user execution and an ethical approach to relationship building that prioritizes client needs over immediate revenue.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Muhammad Yunus and Andrea Jung of Grameen Bank: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Muhammad Yunus, Andrea Jung, Dina
Professor Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to pioneer a global microfinance movement that empowers the rural poor, a model now expanded in the United States under Andrea Jung's leadership at Grameen America. This U.S. branch utilizes a group-based lending structure to provide no-collateral loans to unbanked women, achieving a 99.6% repayment rate while transforming borrowers into financially literate citizens with improved credit scores. Beyond immediate lending, the organization drives long-term economic development through social enterprises like Grameen Shakti and anticipates accelerating impact by integrating mobile technology with traditional microfinance strategies.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Deepak Chopra, M.D.: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Dr. Chopra synthesizes decades of medical observation and modern research on the microbiome to define well-being through five interconnected pillars, while advocating for the use of biosensors and biofeedback to objectively measure and regulate physiological stress. He argues that accessing a "ground state" of infinite potential through meditation allows individuals to transcend cultural conditioning and adopt enlightened leadership qualities such as deep reflection and authentic presence. These principles are presented as a business imperative, demonstrating that focused eight-hour workdays, adequate downtime, and the cultivation of meaning directly enhance organizational efficiency and counteract the detrimental effects of multitasking.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
The Evolution of Bitcoin: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Balaji Srinivasan, Jerry Brito, Tom Jessup
Andreessen Horowitz's Balaji Srinivasan defines Bitcoin as a packet-based protocol that consolidates global value transfer into a programmable machine economy, while addressing current scalability limits through a roadmap targeting millisecond latency and billions of transactions per second. Coin Center's Jerry Brito adds that regulatory frameworks are increasingly treating the protocol like non-regulatable email, with jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the UK actively cultivating fintech ecosystems through self-regulation. Together, these analyses project that Bitcoin will evolve beyond speculative trading into the "dollar of the internet," driven by a self-reinforcing four-sided network effect and emerging use cases in micropayments and in-game asset portability.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
Misty Copeland, Soloist for American Ballet Theatre: Talks at GS Session Highlights
American Ballet Theatre soloist Misty Copeland reflects on her unconventional entry into professional ballet at age 13, navigating rapid physical training, severe injuries requiring tibia surgery, and the unique challenges of race in a historically homogenous art form. She rejects the burden of representation while advocating for structural industry inclusivity, emphasizing that classic repertoire remains valid without adaptation as she expands diversity initiatives like Project Plié. Copeland projects eight to ten additional years of performance, focusing on artistic excellence and mentoring underprivileged communities to see more "brown girls" in classical companies.