The investment bank had pledged that it would only help a business sell its shares on a stock exchange if it had two board members that satisfied diversity requirements, one of whom had to be a woman.

But Richard Gnodde told the BBC: “That policy was put in place to try and drive a change in behaviour and I think that’s happened.”

In a wide-ranging interview, he also said the UK government needed to get on and start infrastructure projects now.

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.

Mr Gnodde said: “I think what is important is that you have a diversity of views on that board and if you look at these companies they’ve all embraced diversity, it’s moved along.

“I think it has served its purpose.”

According to think tank The Conference Board, although US boards are “more diverse than ever”, there was a “marked slowdown” in racial diversity hiring on boards between 2022 and 2024.

Among the 500 largest US firms, the share of non-white directors was 26% and the share of women directors was 34% in 2024, according to the think tank.

In December last year, a US federal appeals court ruled that Nasdaq, the stock market index, did not have the authority to impose rules requiring companies to have women and minorities or LGBTQ+ people on their boards or explain why they did not.

A Goldman Sachs spokesperson said: “As a result of legal developments related to board diversity requirements, we ended our formal board diversity policy.”

The firm did not specify whether it was referring to the Nasdaq case.

In one of his first acts after being sworn in, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end “radical and wasteful government DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion ] programs”.

A number of companies have since rowed back on diverse hiring programs, including Google and Meta, the firm that owns Instagram and Facebook.

Asked whether firms were stepping back from policies around diversity because of the Trump White House, Mr Gnodde said: “I can only speak for ourselves, I don’t think that’s the case.

“Our ambitions are to continue to take things forward and frankly to go much further than we have been.”

However, he conceded that uncertainty caused by Trump’s policy on trade tariffs was weighing on companies’ “animal spirits” and their appetite for investment.

“I think right now, the mood is on the margin [is] a little tempered, because people are uncertain about exactly what the policy outcome will be and exactly what the impacts will be,” said Mr Gnodde.

Trump initially said he would impose 25% tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. However, he then paused them against Canada and Mexico for 30 days.

Since then, the president has subsequently announced he would impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium entering the US, provoking furious responses from the likes of Canada and the European Union.

Looking at the UK, Mr Gnodde urged the government to get going on infrastructure projects sooner rather than later.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced her backing for a third runway at Heathrow as well as expanding Luton and Gatwick airports, and building a “growth corridor” between Oxford and Cambridge.

However, these projects are not expected to be completed for a number of years.

The government has made growing the economy a key policy but UK growth has slowed, according to official figures.

Mr Gnodde said: “The long range projects are very interesting. We need to put them in place but they’re going to take a long time.”

He added: “Let’s find some infrastructure builds that we need to do, whether it’s in the energy sector, whether it’s in transportation, improving the road network, something on energy transition.

“These plans all sit on the Treasury’s desk. Why don’t we put them out to tender, get the private sector to bid on terms that will be attractive to the private sector, and you will see competition.”

In a report into boosting small businesses in Britain, released on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs said: “If there are two things we know from the first six months of a new administration in the UK, it is that growth is the pressing national mission and unlocking it is perhaps the greatest challenge that consecutive governments have faced.”

Mr Gnodde said Labour had “sent a strong message on the competition front” after it recently ousted the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority.

He added that the government pulling such a lever could ignite growth to make the UK “globally competitive”.

He also suggested that UK businesses had to consolidate to compete globally.

“How many of these players do we need?”, he said. “How many telcos do we need? How many banks do we need? I think the market should be able to drive that if we’re going to compete on the global stage.”

The decision to abandon the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) recruitment targets comes after the company carried out an annual review of its corporate policies.

The technology giant is also reviewing some of its other DEI programmes.

US President Donald Trump and his allies have regularly attacked DEI policies. Since his return to the White House just over two weeks ago, Trump has ordered government agencies to eliminate such initiatives.

“We’re committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities,” a Google spokesperson said.

“We’ve updated our [annual investor report] language to reflect this, and as a federal contractor our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic.”

The story was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Between 2021 and 2024, Google’s investor reports stated its commitment to make “diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do”. That line is not in its latest report, which was published on Wednesday.

In recent years, Google had been an outspoken supporter of DEI targets, particularly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the protests that followed his death.

At the time, Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, set a five-year goal to increase the number of its leaders who came from underrepresented groups by 30%.

According to the company, the proportion of black people among its leadership almost doubled between 2020 and last year. It also said representation of women and Latino people had increased in those roles.

Google is the latest major company to make a U-turn on its diversity policies.

Meta, Amazon, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Walmart and others have rolled back their DEI programmes.

Apple has stood out by pushing back against this trend. Last month, the tech giant’s board asked investors to vote against a proposal to end its diversity policies.

The proposal by conservative group, the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), called on the iPhone maker to abolish its DEI policies, saying they expose firms to “litigation, reputational and financial risks”.

Last week, the retail chain Target was sued by a group of shareholders, led by the City of Riviera Beach Police Pension Fund in Florida, who said the firm had defrauded them by allegedly concealing the risks associated with its DEI policies.

The lawsuit referred to a 2023 backlash over LGBTQ+ merchandise at its stores, which caused both its sales and its stock price to drop.

Target has also recently announced that it was ending its DEI targets.

In the latest example of the Trump administration’s disapproval of such policies, the US President last week speculated, without giving evidence, that DEI had led to an air crash in Washington DC.

The remarks, which came less than 24 hours after the crash, were in line with the White House’s efforts to undo such programmes.