Operations Associate

At Goldman Sachs, we connect people, capital and ideas to help solve problems for our clients. We are a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities and investment management services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and individuals. For us, it’s all about bringing together people who are curious, collaborative and have the drive to make things possible for our clients and communities.

Team Overview

The Global Banking & Markets - Private (GBM - Private) Operations Transformation Office is seeking an associate to join the Functional Design & Transformation (FDT) team. FDT sits at the intersection of business strategy, operating model design, and technology delivery, driving front-to-back transformation across the GBM franchise.

In this role, you will lead complex, enterprise-scale initiatives from problem definition through implementation, designing future-state operating models and translating business strategy into actionable product and transformation roadmaps. Working closely with Operations, Sales, Trading, Engineering, and UX teams, you will shape scalable, user-centric solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

As an associate, you will operate as both a transformation strategist and product leader, partnering with senior stakeholders to define target states, align investment priorities, and drive execution. You will also lead and develop a multidisciplinary team of business architects, product and design practitioners, and transformation specialists, establishing the standards and frameworks that underpin successful transformation delivery across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

1. Transformation Strategy & Commercial Value Creation

• Structure highly ambiguous business challenges into clear, hypothesis-driven workstreams with measurable success criteria.
• Develop transformation theses, business cases, and investment strategies that support revenue growth, cost efficiency, risk reduction, control enhancement, and capital optimization.
• Articulate a compelling commercial rationale for every initiative, quantifying expected value and defining clear ROI outcomes. Build defensible business cases and establish accountability for realizing projected financial and operational benefits.
• Partner with business leaders to define multi-year transformation priorities, roadmaps, and sequencing aligned to strategic objectives.
• Apply first-principles thinking to challenge legacy processes, identify root causes, and unlock step-change improvements.

2. Target Operating Model Design & Business Architecture

• Lead the design of future-state Target Operating Models across organization, process, technology, data, governance, and workforce dimensions.
• Develop functional architectures that connect business capabilities, processes, applications, data domains, and organizational structures.
• Assess current-state operating models to establish baselines, identify pain points, and quantify improvement opportunities.
• Conduct structured gap analyses and prioritize initiatives based on business impact, feasibility, and strategic value.
• Define governance frameworks, decision rights, controls, and risk management mechanisms that enable sustainable transformation.

3. Product-Led Transformation Delivery

• Own business outcomes, not just deliverables, establishing value hypotheses, success metrics, and benefit tracking mechanisms.
• Translate operating model designs into product strategies, epics, user stories, and prioritized backlogs.
• Drive prioritization decisions using business value, ROI, technical feasibility, operational risk, and user impact considerations.
• Champion user-centered design through close partnership with UX teams and front-line users to improve adoption and experience.
• Lead initiatives through execution and implementation, ensuring capabilities are delivered into production and successfully embedded within business operations.

4. AI-Enabled Transformation & Innovation

• Identify opportunities to embed AI, automation, and intelligent workflows as foundational components of future-state operating models.
• Design human-in-the-loop operating models that balance automation, judgment, risk management, and control.
• Leverage AI-enabled tools to accelerate research, analysis, design, and delivery while maintaining analytical rigor.
• Maintain deep awareness of emerging AI, GenAI, automation, and enterprise technology capabilities and their practical business applications.

5. Executive Stakeholder Management & Enterprise Leadership

• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across Operations, Sales, Trading, Engineering, Risk, Compliance, Finance, and Control functions.
• Bridge business, operational, and technology perspectives to drive enterprise-wide alignment and decision-making.
• Develop executive-quality narratives, business cases, operating model designs, and steering committee materials.
• Influence outcomes across matrixed organizations without direct authority, building consensus and removing execution barriers.
• Lead governance forums, working groups, and steering committees to drive decisions and maintain transformation momentum.

6. Capability Building

• Establish reusable methodologies, frameworks, playbooks, and accelerators that scale team effectiveness.
• Drive sustainable adoption through change management, enablement, and capability transfer to business stakeholders.
• Define and uphold the standard for world-class transformation, operating model design, and product-led delivery within the organization.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience across management consulting, transformation strategy, operating model design, product management, business architecture, or related disciplines within financial services.
• Proven track record leading large-scale, cross-functional transformation programs from strategy through execution with measurable business impact.
• Strong commercial acumen, including business case development, financial modeling, value realization, and ROI measurement.
• Deep expertise in Target Operating Model design across organizational, process, technology, data, and governance domains.
• Strong product management discipline, including roadmap development, backlog prioritization, Agile delivery, and user-centered design.
• Exceptional structured problem-solving and analytical capabilities, including hypothesis-driven analysis and data-informed decision-making.
• Outstanding executive communication and storytelling skills, with experience influencing senior stakeholders and leadership forums.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted partnerships and drive alignment across complex, matrixed organizations.
• Experience leading, coaching, and developing high-performing multidisciplinary teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years at a leading management consulting firm (MBB, Big Four Strategy, or equivalent) with financial services experience.
• MBA or advanced degree in a relevant discipline.
• Experience with business architecture methodologies, including capability modeling, value stream mapping, BPMN, TOGAF, or ArchiMate.
• Hands-on experience applying AI/ML, intelligent automation, and GenAI technologies to business transformation initiatives.
• Deep understanding of banking and capital markets operations, including trade lifecycle management, settlements, reconciliations, and regulatory reporting.
• Experience leading change management, organizational adoption, and capability transfer programs.
• Proficiency with visualization and collaboration tools such as PowerPoint, Visio, Tableau, Power BI, Figma, and Miro.
• Direct experience within GBM Operations, middle office, settlements, confirmations, or related capital markets functions

ABOUT GOLDMAN SACHS

At Goldman Sachs, we commit our people, capital and ideas to help our clients, shareholders and the communities we serve to grow. Founded in 1869, we are a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Headquartered in New York, we maintain offices around the world. 

We believe who you are makes you better at what you do. We're committed to fostering and advancing diversity and inclusion in our own workplace and beyond by ensuring every individual within our firm has a number of opportunities to grow professionally and personally, from our training and development opportunities and firmwide networks to benefits, wellness and personal finance offerings and mindfulness programs. Learn more about our culture, benefits, and people at GS.com/careers. 

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