Meena Lakdawala-Flynn knew what it meant to perform under pressure years before becoming a partner at one of the country’s top banks.
Lakdawala-Flynn, cohead of Global Private Wealth Management and One Goldman Sachs, started doing gymnastics when she was two years old. By the time she was eight, Lakdawala-Flynn said she was exercising between 30 and 40 hours a week, and dead-set on going to the Olympics.
Yet even though Olympic glory wasn’t in Lakdawala-Flynn’s future — “I grew four inches, I put on 20 pounds, and I wasn’t good enough,” she told Business Insider — the years in the gym still echo in her work on Wall Street.
“The moment I stepped foot on that trading floor, the same competitive juices that I had in gymnastics came out in something else,” she said of her first finance internship at an investment boutique. In her years rising at Goldman, Lakdawala-Flynn said she has relied on the work ethic, grit, perseverance, and need to perform that she mastered during her time as a gymnast. Even though gymnastics is an individual sport, competing on a team in college influenced her ability to form key relationships at Goldman.
“Gymnastics is won in millimeter-level details under pressure, so is working in finance,” Lakdawala-Flynn told Business Insider in an email. She said the same is true of her job: the small, precise changes she makes to models, risk assessments, and client meetings can lead to big advantages.
Athletes have become an important talent and recruiting pool for Goldman Sachs, which hired a former NFL star in 2018 and promoted him to managing director in 2022. Business Insider previously spoke to three former D-1 college athletes who work at Goldman about how their experiences have helped them stand out and get ahead.
“It is a way to differentiate yourself,” Jacqueline Arthur, Goldman’s head of human capital management, previously told Business Insider about why athletes are compelling applicants. “These qualities are not just transferable but powerful and directly applicable to the dynamic environment of financial services.”
Those qualities don’t just have to come from sports, though.
Lakdawala-Flynn said that being seriously devoted to any craft can teach the same teamwork and dedication common among many successful people.
“If you have that amount of passion, curiosity, and dedication, and you rise to become one of the best, it’s the same skill sets, whether it’s an athlete or not an athlete,” she said.
Landing a job at Goldman isn’t easy, especially for Gen Zers who are trying to differentiate themselves in a challenging job market. The firm received more than 360,000 applicants for its 2025 summer internship program, and accepted less than 1% of hopefuls.
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