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According to the NYTimes byline, he is a "Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa."

That doesn't sound like a lowly VP.

It's rubbish that he has nothing to lose: coming out so publicly against your former employer never looks good on a resume. And Goldman can respond in the tradition of politicians facing similar stories: by using surrogates.

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GS is 30k people, 12k of them VP-level, of which Smith was one.

http://dealbreaker.com/2012/03/goldman-sachs-was-less-than-t...

VP in IB doesn't map to VP in any other industry I've seen. The (many, many) titles become more confusing when employees refer to Managing Directors (highest rank) as MDs, as if that wasn't overloaded. ("gonna see my MD today...")

Executive Director isn't that senior, though. Normally you need to be MD to be considered properly senior.

Also, banks all vary in what they call equivalent titles.

EG UBS: Associate Director, Director, Executive Director, MD Deutsche: Assistant Vice President, Vice President, Director, MD

Bank of America and other places confuse things further with SVPs, FVPs, etc.

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