"The ideal place to meet people from all walks of life".
Dermot McDonogh has been with Goldman Sachs for 25 years and has been closely following the recent move of his teams to Avenue Marceau. It's a choice that makes sense in the post-pandemic context, where the emphasis is on central offices.
The pandemic has called into question the raison d'être of offices. How do you define it?
In the post-pandemic era, everyone is hungry for flexibility. Everyone wants to have as many options as possible. But in a career, discussions in the cafeteria or around the water cooler are vitally important. At the end of the day, life is about connections, relationships, and relationships are made in the office. I think offices are a great place to meet other people, to develop your network, to meet people from all walks of life, all nationalities, to discover different careers. So many activities that you can do in an office that you can't do from home.
You recently moved to Avenue Marceau in Paris. Why did you make this choice?
The reason why the Paris market is so important for businesses is that Paris is one of the cities in the world that people like to visit. One of the reasons they go there is to meet customers, and real estate is a natural extension of those meetings. We wanted to be in the centre because we wanted to be close to our customers.
You have chosen a building with a very high level of services. Why have you done this?
These days we're constantly talking about well-being and the mental health of our employees. Architecture, space and a good working environment make people happier. If you have to spend 8, 10 or 12 hours a day in a place, you want to enjoy it and be able to collaborate with other people. To achieve this, it's important that we provide very high quality offices.
Insights from Dermot McDonogh, Chief Operating Officer, Goldman Sachs Europe
"For me, the ideal office building is characterised by natural light, lots of open space, collaboration, no closed doors and a kind of freedom of movement throughout the building. But the most important feature of a building is its location."
