Goldman Sachs has ended a ban on underwriting companies with all-White, all-male boards, becoming the latest corporate giant to scale back a DEI initiative.

Goldman Sachs has scrapped a diversity rule which barred it from advising all male, all white boards on company flotations. The now-ditched rule stated the investment bank would only help a business sell its shares on a stock exchange if it had two board members that fitted diversity requirements – one of whom had to

Goldman Sachs introduced its diversity policy on boards in 2020, initially mandating that companies who wanted to float had to have one diverse member, before increasing it to two people.

Goldman Sachs is ending its policy that mandated companies have a diverse board for the bank to take them public. The rule, a version of which was implemented in 2020, had said the bank would only underwrite the initial public offerings for companies in the U.

Diversity standards at Goldman and Nasdaq were powerful—but are now gone.

The vice chair of Goldman Sachs has announced the bank has axed a diversity rule which excludes white men. As a result of legal challenges and political scrutiny, the bank has dropped its IPO board diversity requirement entirely,