Goldman Sachs’ top diversity official has left for a rival in recent weeks, multiple people familiar with the matter told Business Insider. Her exit comes as Wall Street retreats from long-stated DEI pledges about hiring and career advancement.
Megan Hogan, Goldman’s global co-head of talent, who joined the firm nearly 12 years ago and held the title of chief diversity officer until early 2025, left in January for Morgan Stanley, several people familiar with the matter said. Hogan also confirmed the move via email on Tuesday, telling Business Insider that Morgan Stanley had extended her “an amazing opportunity” in talent development, which will begin when her garden leave expires. She declined to comment further.
At Morgan Stanley, Hogan will serve as head of talent development, reporting to Susan Reid, the firm’s global head of talent. Hogan will begin in April, a person familiar with the hire said.
Like other Wall Street banks, Goldman Sachs spent years investing in workforce diversity initiatives, and Hogan was one of its most prominent faces focused on social impact issues. But when President Donald Trump returned to power last January, he issued an executive order ending DEI programming at government agencies and urging companies to follow suit. Goldman, like many of its peers, has since taken steps to scrub DEI language from public-facing materials.
Earlier this month, the bank also agreed to remove race, gender identity, and sexual orientation from its board-member selection criteria following pressure from a conservative shareholder group, the Wall Street Journal reported. It also stopped highlighting specific DEI targets in annual reports, a practice that had been a staple of its post-2020 communications, and said it would sunset the “aspirational hiring goals” it established half a decade ago.
“This is a reflection of the changing legal environment and adapting to the reality of those legal shifts,” a spokesperson for the bank told Business Insider, adding that the firm stands by the benefit of “diverse perspectives and experiences,” and is following the law while running programs designed to “attract the best talent.”
Later this week, the bank is expected to name Lauren Uranker, another managing director who joined the firm about 14 years ago, as the new sole head of talent development, engagement, and management, according to a person with close knowledge of the bank’s thinking. Uranker was appointed global co-head of talent alongside Hogan in mid-2025.
In her new position, Uranker’s mandate is expected to concentrate on the transition to AI-supported work, team growth, and finding ways to engage and retain top employees. Her title has no direct references to DEI, but the position will still encompass programming designed to advance workplace inclusion, the source added.
Corporate DEI retreat
Corporate America — including financial services firms such as JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley— has eased use of the term “DEI” and associated language since early 2025. The Trump administration’s rebuke of diversity-related programming continues to serve as a point of pride for Trump, who touted the crackdown during his State of the Union address to lawmakers on Tuesday night. “We ended DEI in America,” he said.
Goldman had previously been among Wall Street’s most vocal advocates for promoting inclusion in the workplace. In 2020, David Solomon, the bank’s CEO, championed a series of policies like requiring companies to appoint diverse board members before his bankers would agree to help them go public — a rule the company killed last year. Stephanie Cohen, the bank’s former chief strategy officer who departed in 2024, told Business Insider in 2020 that Goldman viewed these issues as more than perfunctory but vital for commercial success.
Hogan’s predecessor, Erika Irish Brown, left for Citi in 2021 to lead DEI efforts there. Following Brown’s departure, Hogan — who previously held the titles of head of Americas talent management and global head of diversity recruiting — assumed the chief diversity officer title the same year, but last year consolidated primarily on her “global co-head of talent” designation. Her exit compounds another long-standing struggle for the Wall Street bank: retaining senior female leaders. Goldman has faced blowback over whether it’s done enough to support their career progress — an area where officials have acknowledged there’s room for improvement.
Though the firm has increased the total share of female managing directors by 3% since 2021, a spokesperson said, Solomon acknowledged this past fall that there was further to go. “We’ve made a bunch of progress, especially in the senior ranks,” he said at the Economic Club of Washington in October. But the results, he added, were “candidly not enough, and we continue to be focused on creating opportunities.”
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