How Olympic swimmer Ryan Held is navigating a new lane at Goldman Sachs

"With three world records and two Olympic gold medals under his belt in swimming, Ryan Held's new challenge isn't in the pool. It's at 200 West as an analyst in cyber risk at the elite investment bank Goldman Sachs. He's raced alongside teammates like Michael Phelps and Caeleb Dressel, yet when he started his new job this year, he admits he felt a bit like an underdog."

"The biggest challenge in joining the corporate world, Held said, has been transitioning from a life where his physical strength is his greatest asset to one where his mental strength is. As he put it, he moved from athletics, "where my body is the product," to "a corporate job, where priorities are different." When he first arrived, Held, 30, said he felt self-conscious about his journey to the firm and the fact that it wasn't the typical post-grad one."

""It was easy to compare myself to others, but now I've realized," he said, "even though I had a different journey, I was hired for a reason.""

Ryan Held won two Olympic gold medals and set three world records in swimming before joining Goldman Sachs as an analyst in cyber risk at 200 West. He joined the firm's operational risk team in February and has been adapting to corporate life for about eight months. Held described the main challenge as shifting from relying on physical strength to relying on mental strength in a role with different priorities. He initially felt like an underdog and self-conscious about being older than typical analysts. He used mental training techniques from swimming to manage stress and negative thoughts.

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