How One Athlete Went From Olympic Swimmer to Goldman Sachs Analyst

With three world data and two Olympic gold medals beneath his belt in swimming, Ryan Held’s new problem is not within the pool. It’s at 200 West as an analyst in cyber threat on the elite funding financial institution Goldman Sachs. He’s raced alongside teammates like Michael Phelps and Caeleb Dressel, but when he began his new job this 12 months, he admits he felt a bit like an underdog.

Held, who joined the monetary behemoth’s operational threat staff in February, talked to Business Insider about what it has been wish to go from spending his days within the pool to becoming a member of the ranks of certainly one of Wall Street’s most storied establishments.

The largest problem in becoming a member of the company world, Held stated, has been transitioning from a life the place his bodily power is his biggest asset to at least one the place his psychological power is.

As he put it, he moved from athletics, “where my body is the product,” to “a corporate job, where priorities are different.”

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When he first arrived, Held, 30, stated he felt self-conscious about his journey to the agency and the truth that it wasn’t the everyday post-grad one. Most analyst-level staff on Wall Street, for instance, are of their early to mid-twenties. At that point in his life, Held was busy coaching for gold medals — hardly a nasty excuse.

“It was easy to compare myself to others, but now I’ve realized,” he stated, “even though I had a different journey, I was hired for a reason.”

He’s solely about eight months into the job, so it is a shift he is nonetheless making. But a method he has handled it’s by using an idea he discovered within the pool whereas coaching for the 2024 Olympics. He discovered to differentiate between “red light” ideas—irrational fears or stressors—and “green light” ideas, that are grounded in rational beliefs.

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He now applies the identical mindset at work, specializing in the optimistic, reminding himself that his work ethic and observe document of performing beneath strain are what earned him a spot at Goldman.

“Goldman Sachs and my team have a vision for me, so why would I doubt myself and them?” Held stated.

From Rio and Paris to 200 West

This time final summer season, Held had simply gained a gold medal for the 4×100 meter freestyle relay.

He took up swimming significantly after a soccer damage in seventh grade and went on to compete for North Carolina State University’s Division I staff. In 2016, whereas nonetheless a pupil, he made his Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro, profitable gold within the 4×100 race alongside Phelps, Dressel, and Nathan Adrian. He was 21 on the time and infamously bought fairly emotional on the rostrum throughout the awards ceremony.

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“It awakes a deep sense of patriotism — swimming for the country and swimming for people you’ve never even met or even know exist. But they know you, and they live vicariously through you. So trying to represent them on the biggest stage in the best way is a great honor.”

When it got here time to suppose past Olympics, Held wasn’t initially gunning for Wall Street. He was excited about careers in city design companies and environmental companies due to his levels in conservation biology and geospatial info science.

In networking with different high-level swimmers who landed at Goldman in regards to the transition from athlete to company world, he discovered that the financial institution was extra than simply finance — there have been roles he did not know existed in areas like operations and threat.

Held’s staff manages the identification and controlling of dangers that may come up inside the agency’s staff, methods, workflows, and exterior occasions. He focuses particularly on cybersecurity. Held favored that the operational threat staff gave him a large standback view of the entire agency, and his grasp’s diploma in geographic info methods shared the pc and tech qualities of his function.

“My job is to help make sure the firm and our people practice good cyber hygiene,” he stated. “The most basic examples include using complex passwords and securing your workspace.”

Held stated he is not planning to take part within the 2028 Los Angeles video games. But he nonetheless swims three or 4 instances every week on the New York Athletic Club, often earlier than he goes into the workplace and on the weekends.

“It just feels nice to work out before work. It wakes you up. And when you’re in the water, you’re weightless,” he stated. “It’s a quiet sport, so for an hour you just hear the swoosh of water in your ears, and you get in this kind of zen.”