Directing capital to fuel real-world growth, Asahi Pompey leads Goldman Sachs’ Corporate Engagement and chairs the Urban Investment Group (UIG). She is at the helm of signature platforms like 10,000 Small Businesses, 10,000 Women, and One Million Black Women, which combined with UIG, have deployed over $24 billion to capitalize entrepreneurs, build affordable housing, and drive local economies.
I don’t believe one designs a career. Rather, one designs a set of principles, and the career follows.
Early on, I realized that every opportunity I said “yes” to taught me something that would become essential later. Even when the ROI wasn’t clear at the time. Attending high school in Tokyo, practicing law in Frankfurt, pivoting from a law firm to a career on Wall Street, I couldn’t’ have predicted where each would lead.
However, I always committed fully, and that’s the key. Burn the boats, as they say. Once you choose a path, go all in. No successful person ever said, “I achieved it by having one foot in and one foot out the door.” Immerse yourself in the work, the culture; understand the strategy; make meaningful connections with the people; and own the outcome.
My role requires addressing complex issues, involving consequential stakeholders, often competing considerations, and no straightforward answers. Take our investment in affordable housing, for example. The urgency for real solutions demands that we move beyond traditional approaches. No single action or entity can solve this alone.
Partnership isn’t a strategy. It’s the only strategy.
And real partnerships require:
1- Shared accountability. When we partner with cities, housing authorities, and developers, we co-design capital structures and align on measurable outcomes. Everyone commits resources. Everyone assumes risk. That shared stake drives urgency.
2- A willingness to navigate complexity. UIG is known for this. Complexity defines affordable housing financing. Varied sources like LIHTC equity and bridge loans with bespoke timelines and regulatory frameworks. Developers often need to stack four or more subsidy programs to make a single project viable. We work with partners who have the agility to manage that complexity. Partners who get it done.
3- Trust. Generated through consistency and depleted by lack of transparency. It requires leaders who listen, communicate with candor, and look after the best interests of the entire partnership.
Coming straight out of school, I thought senior people had all the answers. Now I understand: great ideas know no level.
Recently, I convened a group of 15 analysts to share their ideas on how we can innovate on one of our signature programs, the Analyst Impact Fund, which just celebrated its 10th year.
We hire the best of the best, so why not listen to them?
However, listening is only half the equation. I challenged their assumptions, they challenged mine, and together we refined concepts that neither side could have reached alone.
Junior colleagues bring a clarity and freedom from the weight of “how things have always been done.”
Real leadership isn’t about having all the answers all the time. Sometimes it’s about creating the conditions where the best thinking can emerge.
Be the person who stays in the room after the meeting is over.
In the name of efficiency, many people rush out. Deal closed and on to the next thing. But strong relationships are forged in the in-between spaces. During the break. On the drive. On the plane.
While the transactional ones rush out, stay, connect and build. You’ll be surprised what you learn and where it takes you.
My mother, Edith. She is equal parts discipline, care, and sheer will.
My parents emigrated from Guyana to Brooklyn with me, my twin brother, and three other siblings.
I vividly remember watching my mother at the grocery store. Essentials went on the belt first. She’d watch the numbers climb on the register, and when the total neared her hard limit, she stopped. She’d turn to each of us and we could each put one or two of our favorite things on the belt. Five years after coming to America, my parents bought their home in Brooklyn, moving us out of the projects.
So the first CFOs I ever met never went to business school. They raised families on a budget that left no room for error.
Watching my mother, I learned resourcefulness is the edge.
It’s the same edge I recognize in the entrepreneurs I work with. When I meet graduates of our 10,000 Women program, I see that same "third shift" mentality. They are the first in and the last out. They put off their own vacation to ensure their employees take theirs. And they pay themselves last. Women entrepreneurs work the third shift of caring for and managing their household, children, parents, and communities.
When I need a reset, I think of them. And I charge back harder.
My sons, Max and Sebastian. They ground me, challenge me, and remind me why this work matters.
Professionally, it’s the tangible impact of capital. Financing rural small businesses. Building affordable housing. Investing in entrepreneurs.
Underwriting that growth is the ultimate American story. Proof that where you start is not where you finish.
The return of philosophical inquiry in everyday conversations.
Around dinner tables, in conference rooms, and on strolls in Central Park, friends and colleagues alike want to discuss where the world is going.
While AI is the trigger, the dialogue quickly moves beyond technology. Beyond predictions about employment, wages, and productivity, to deeper questions about the human condition: the value of imperfection, our need for human connection, the nature of artistic expression, and the relationship between economic utility and dignity.
The crescendo of these conversations is nowhere near peak. We are grappling with what is distinctly human, trying to discern what we’re gaining and what we may be losing.
Frankly, I haven’t heard Kant, Sartre, and Wittgenstein referenced so much since I was a resident in Parrish Hall at Swarthmore and East Campus at Columbia Law.
The Proverbs of British Guiana by James Speirs, published in 1902.
I have always been drawn to proverbs because we sometimes move through the world as if no one has faced what we’re facing. Proverbs remind me that while technology, markets, and structures climate changes, the fundamentals of human nature persist.
No matter your background, we have all nodded knowingly upon hearing the same truths reflected in a proverb from India, Ireland, or Mexico. Different languages, different centuries, and yet, they arrived at the same truths.
And they have left us the notes.
You can follow Asahi on LinkedIn.
