Leading global investment bank Goldman Sachs opened its new $250-million Bengaluru office on Thursday. The office, which will serve as a global centre supporting innovation, has 1.2 million sq ft of building area housed in three 10-storey towers, with a seating capacity for approximately 7,300 employees.
It features world-class childcare, health and fitness facilities, and rooms for indoor recreation, innovation, and contemplation, as also event spaces. Goldman Sachs broke ground for the construction for the new Bengaluru office in 2014.
Centre of innovation
“Our Bengaluru office has become one of the firm’s global centres of innovation focussed on the development and application of artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to help solve business problems for our worldwide network” said Gunjan Samtani, head of Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru.
“The world-class facilities built into our new office — 150 ORR (Outer Ring Road), which is a name that commemorates the firm’s 150th anniversary this year — will enable our people to further locally innovate and collaborate with our offices around the world,” he said.
In addition to being LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum-certified, the new office is also WELL Gold-certified as it has incorporated features that impact human health and wellness in buildings through air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.
The company’s Bengaluru operations, which started in 2004 with 290 people across five functions, has over 5,000 professionals across 14 functions and is Goldman Sachs’ third-largest office in the world by headcount. It has the second-largest number of engineers after its headquarters in New York. Over the past five years, the Bengaluru office headcount has grown at 24 per cent CAGR. During the same period, Goldman Sachs also increased campus hiring of full-time employees in India by 20 per cent.
‘Talent incubator’
“The Bengaluru office has grown in size and technological sophistication to become an incubator of talent for our businesses around the world. The significant investment we have made to build this state-of-the-art workplace reflects the importance placed on the high-quality work done in India and our focus on hiring the best people” said Chairman and CEO David M Solomon, in a statement.