There’s something wonderfully subversive about Leslie C. Tortora ’78.  Sure, she’s the chief information officer at Goldman Sachs, a venerable investment banking and securities firm.  But she’s also a former history major turned computer expert who is responsible for her firm’s information technology division on a global basis.  What’s more, when she joined the Goldman Sachs management committee in 1999, she became one of the first two women to earn a place in the 132-year-old firm’s top executive echelon.  She’s thus a humanities-trained female technologist surrounded by investment bankers in the traditionally male world of finance. Go figure.

Tortora loves the dynamic interface between technology and finance. A 17-year veteran at Goldman Sachs, she was instrumental in the past several years in developing and implementing global technological systems—including networks, data centers, Web servers, and trading and processing systems software—for the firm’s presence in 23 countries. She now oversees a workforce of 4,400 people and a budget of just over $2 billion. “This is a particularly exciting time to be in technology and to be working on Wall Street,” she says.  “Most of the Wall Street firms are very dependent on the technology, and the technology itself has become so much more capable. Now it is often the driver of new business opportunities or existing businesses, as opposed to the past when it was a service provided to the business.” Rather than simply implementing solutions to technological problems, Tortora’s organization helps Goldman Sachs develop products that address the needs of their clients.

The fast pace of technological change and the intense environment on Wall Street can make for a grueling combination.  Tortora says she is “always learning and pushing myself to my limits,” which is simultaneously challenging, rewarding, and exhausting. 

A foundation at Trinity
Tortora is a self-described “army brat” who attended 12 different schools before college. Her education was somewhat “fragmented,” she says, and she viewed Trinity as “a school that could help tie it all together.”  She majored in history, which did not emphasize the memorization of facts but rather offered “the training in how to study something, understand it conceptually, be able to back it with facts, and derive a conclusion.”  Says Tortora, “Those are just natural skills you need every day in the business life. I felt that it was pretty easy to learn the specialty skills—and actually even the managerial skills—because I had such a broad-based foundation to build on.”

Tortora embraced the liberal arts environment, getting involved in a number of theater arts productions.  In her senior year she played the title character in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”  She also earned her teacher’s certification by student teaching for a few months before graduation as a permanent substitute at one of the city schools in Hartford.  “Since Trinity was right in the core of the city, I could do that in addition to my normal studies,” says Tortora.  “And I felt it broadened my capability to communicate with kids and people from all different backgrounds.”

Her experiences with inner-city schools as a Trinity undergraduate made a lasting impression.  Today, although she has little time for activities beyond her work and family (she has two boys, ages 11 and 14), she has been making connections with New York City organizations that “bridge the digital gap.” Says Tortora, “I’m very interested in technology as it relates to the inner-city schools and learning-
disadvantaged kids.” 

The rise of technology
After Trinity, Tortora considered going to graduate school in history but instead shifted gears and took a few evening classes in computer programming languages.  She worked as a computer programmer at a few other firms, including a stint as the technical services director at General Electric, before settling at Goldman Sachs in 1984.  After accomplishing a number of projects across the divisions of the firm and taking on more and more managerial responsibilities, Tortora began making a name for herself.  She says, “In 1992, I was asked to join the partnership as the first technologist to make partner from within the firm.”  Although it was “a huge compliment from the organization” on a personal level, Tortora also believes that her promotion reflected the firm’s recognition of the increasing importance of technology in the industry. 

After her first partners’ meeting, when she was one of a handful of female partners among the 135-member group, she was asked how it felt to be at that meeting.  It did feel a little “different,” Tortora acknowledged, but not on account of her gender.  She says, “I was the only technologist in the room with all these investment bankers who knew what one another did, but knew nothing about what technology could do, should do, what it was as a profession, etc.  That felt more odd to me.” 

Since then, Tortora has witnessed a sea change in the industry as technology has moved from the margins to front and center.  In the letter from the chairman in Goldman Sachs’ annual report from last year, she points out, there is a prominent paragraph about the necessity of being technologically innovative in order to best serve clients and the company’s own needs.  Says Tortora, “You would not have seen that in an annual report five years ago.” Wall Street has finally gained an appreciation for the relevance of technology.  She says, “It’s so much more a part of the common language and understanding and culture.”

–Leslie Virostek