Meet the woman who wrote a shocking account of her life on Wall Street

Jamie Fiore Higgins didn't permission her occupation astatine Goldman Sachs readying to uncover the astir personal, demeaning and, astatine times, outright scary moments from her 18 years astatine the concern bank.

But aft resigning successful 2016, having risen done the ranks to go a managing manager — the second-highest relation down spouse — conversations with radical from extracurricular of that satellite made her recognize however shocking immoderate of the things she'd experienced were.

And truthful successful the publication "Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny astatine Goldman Sachs," published past summer, she chronicled them.

Some anecdotes, from her aboriginal days successful the precocious 1990s but besides later, were sexist comments and inappropriate actions she characterizes arsenic the "white sound of Wall Street." She says a workfellow created a spreadsheet ranking the assemblage parts of pistillate recruits. She recalls being told she had lone been promoted "because of [her] vagina," and a bid of inferior antheral colleagues making wide they would not respect her authority.

She besides says she witnessed enactment and drug-taking successful the office, and enactment socials being held successful portion clubs (she notes astatine the commencement of the publication that immoderate of the radical featured successful it, who are each fixed pseudonyms, are composites of assorted radical she knew and the timing of immoderate events has been compressed).

A Goldman Sachs spokesperson said the institution "strongly disagrees" with the characterization of its civilization described successful the book, and what it called "anonymized allegations."

"Had Ms. Higgins raised these allegations with our Human Resources section astatine the clip we would person investigated them thoroughly and addressed them seriously," the spokesperson told CNBC. CNBC could not independently verify immoderate of the accounts made successful the book.

Fiore Higgins besides says that, contempt the institution offering rooms for breastfeeding, she was erstwhile told that utilizing them would clasp backmost her career. And that erstwhile she did usage them aft having a child, colleagues made "mooing" noises astatine her, performed crude gestures, and near a stuffed cattle connected her desk.

In different story, she recounts removing a workfellow (who was having an matter with his client) from an account. She says helium responded by pinning her against a partition and shouting into her face, spraying her with spit arsenic helium threatened her.

"I received hundreds and hundreds of messages from people, adjacent present six months out, each time I get 1 oregon 2 saying convey you for telling this story, there's truthful overmuch of what you person experienced that resonates with me," she told CNBC.

Fiore Higgins is besides up beforehand astir the information that she was determination for truthful galore years, successful a elder relation reached by acold less women than men, penning that she was "tolerating and perpetuating harassment and abuse" and being "complicit successful a breached system."

"For those 18 years, I cared much astir Goldman Sachs than I did my husband, my kids, my parents," she told CNBC.

Staying for truthful agelong contempt being pushed adjacent breaking constituent aggregate times came down to a assortment of factors, she said. Contributing to her working-class family's finances, and making her migrant parents, who had faced their ain struggles and placed unit connected her to succeed, proud.

In the book, erstwhile she archetypal tells them astir her six-figure wage successful their New Jersey surviving room, her grandma drops her knitting needles successful shock. Within a fewer years Fiore Higgins is connected a million-dollar wage (though this, she says, was conscionable 1 dollar much than a antheral moving beneath her was earning astatine the time).

On apical of that was the dangling carrot of a mammoth bonus, communal crossed the fiscal industry.

Then determination was the fearfulness of recrimination; the normalization successful the bureau of things that would appal an outsider; and addiction to the prestige of being "Jamie from Goldman."

"What I realized that Goldman was truthful bully astatine was truly making you consciousness you were thing without them, thing without their name, thing without their money," she said.

A large portion of what yet pushed her to leave, utilizing her meticulously-compiled "spreadsheet of freedom," was erstwhile she claims she did study an incident. She reported to HR a workfellow she had witnessed racially and homophobically abusing a bartender.

"Months aboriginal my reappraisal tanks," she told CNBC. "I knew that they were going to marque maine wage for speaking retired of turn, going against the family."

A Goldman Sachs spokesperson told CNBC it has a zero tolerance argumentation for some favoritism and recriminations against employees for reporting incidents, and that immoderate HR study is investigated thoroughly.

Fiore Higgins' relationship represents 1 person's experiences implicit a acceptable play of time. But she notes others person spoken up; it is conscionable that it remains rare, and "taboo," successful her words, to spell into specified detail.

Last November, it was reported that Goldman Sachs had paid much than $12 cardinal to a erstwhile pistillate spouse to settee claims of elder executives creating a hostile situation for women. Top Goldman lawyer Kathy Ruemmler said successful a connection to CNBC astatine the clip that the steadfast disputed the archetypal Bloomberg article.

The slope is besides embroiled successful a long-running class enactment lawsuit with astir 1,800 plaintiffs alleging the slope paid women little than men and their show reviews were held back. It is owed to spell to proceedings successful June. Goldman has denied immoderate wrongdoing.

Amid the #MeToo movement, wider societal forces and efforts from immoderate elder managers, companies astir the satellite person been making efforts, astatine slightest connected paper, to beforehand diversity.

In Fiore Higgins' view, things person improved successful immoderate areas, and determination is simply a genuine tendency among the C-suite to forestall systemic and casual discrimination. But institutions similar Goldman could inactive use the afloat unit of their analytical and metric-setting skills to boost the fig of women making it to spouse level, she said, and make the benignant of inclusive situation studies person shown tin boost a company's bottommost line.

She's besides conscious of the value of sending a connection to immoderate of her readers, including uncovering a trusted advisor good removed from the company.

"I've had the accidental to speech astatine a mates of universities. I've spoken to radical who were like, 'I got a occupation offer, I work your book, I'm acrophobic to go'," she said.

"It's like, no, that's not the answer. When I archetypal started moving astatine Goldman ... their selling happening was Minds Wide Open. I was lapping it up — and it was conscionable a selling pitch. It wasn't what I saw successful the lived experience."

"So I accidental to these students that I've been talking to, men and women, you privation to spell successful with your eyes wide open, you privation to beryllium precise wide of what is possible. Be prepared with connection astir it, cognize however to respond and respond erstwhile these things happen."