Greg Smith Quit Goldman After ‘Unrealistic’ Pitch for $1M

Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. salesman who publicly accused the firm of ripping off its clients, was denied a raise and a promotion in the weeks before he resigned in March, documents provided by Goldman show.

Smith, 33, told one of his managers in a December 2011 meeting that he expected to earn more than $1 million a year, about double what he was making at the time as an executive director in London, according to a summary of Goldman Sachs’s investigation into Smith’s claims. He also said in the meeting that he wasn’t advancing up the corporate ladder fast enough and expected to win the promotion to managing director he had repeatedly stated as a goal in self-evaluations.