The Most Powerful Women in Banking NEXT, #2, Anne-Victoire Auriault, Goldman Sachs

You don't become head of a global trading desk at Goldman Sachs if you're afraid of a little risk. As is often the case with the bank, the numbers back it up, and Goldman is hitting record revenue in several of its largest markets. 

One of those—global program trading and ETF trading—is headed by Anne-Victoire Auriault. Made one of the bank's youngest-ever partners when she was 32, Auriault helped equities revenue rise 25% in the first quarter this year—to a record $5.3 billion from $4.2 billion in the year-ago period. More broadly, Goldman's Global Banking and Markets unit had record first-quarter revenue, while in 2025 revenue from fixed-income, currencies and commodities hit a record as well. 

"Some of our competitors are maybe willing to take a little bit less risk or extend slightly less balance sheet then I think I will find at Goldman. Those are the times where we tend to really kind of shine and be able to really help our clients," Auriault said in an interview. "We are not afraid to take risk, and we are not afraid to use our balance sheet."

Last year, the firm renewed its role as lead market maker in the exchange-traded funds market, taking on the role for Capital Group's U.S. Large Growth ETF, Bloomberg News reported last July. Doing more business in the ETF arena is a strategic priority for the bank, which sees continued growth in the market, "particularly actively managed ETFs," Goldman said. 

The bank dropped out of lead market making in 2017 after regulatory changes made it less profitable, Bloomberg reported at the time. Bringing it back last year came after strong demand, Auriault said: "That was a very client-driven decision." 

The decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020 to loosen rules on what can be held within an ETF is continuing to spur innovation in the space, Auriault said. While passive ETFs are still the dominant form in the market, actively managed funds are the fastest growing part of the market, she said.  

The bank in August acquired NEOS Investments, an active-ETF platform, for $2.3 billion. Goldman said in a statement NEOS would add $30 billion in active-ETFs to its stable of products. In May, Goldman surpassed $100 billion in assets on its ETF platform, Bryon Lake, co-head of third party wealth and chief transformation officer at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, told Investment News.

"There has been an explosion of innovation within the product, and so you've seen a lot of new types of ETF emerge," she said.