Scores of partners have left Goldman Sachs in recent years. Only one is singing and dancing about it. In public.
Stacy Polley was a star of fixed-income sales at Goldman for almost 25 years. Now she’s the star of a Manhattan cabaret show about life after the investment bank. In lyrics and patter, she airs what it’s like to lose her work identity, and be forced to find new definitions of success.
Spoiler alert: She’s coping well, judging from the moment she arrived on stage Wednesday night at the Cutting Room in a short, sparkly dress, accompanied by backup singers, declaring, “Divorced, retired, survived.”
The 55-year-old sings about golf in a way that makes clear she’s found a new outlet for her competitive streak.
Audience members confirmed, it’s fierce.
“Polley didn’t sing in the office, she screamed,” said Ashok Varadhan, co-head of global banking and markets.
For now, Polley has time for golf—she’ll be playing the new Panther National course in Palm Beach Gardens next week—and a toe in Wall Street work. She’s an adviser to Blackstone and HighPost Capital and on the board of Blue Owl.
As for adjusting to not getting her daily fix of Goldman adrenaline, she has good company to process it. Pablo Salame, now at Citadel, said he and Polley have had many meaningful talks over coffee, tea and whiskey. And Harvey Schwartz, now CEO of Carlyle Group, assured her that going back to work full-time is not weird or hard, it comes right back to you.
“Her options are limitless,” Schwartz said. “It’s all about what she wants to do.”
The show—with a full band, and cameos by ChatGPT—is a confessional, comedic romp with Polley belting out pop and Broadway tunes, but it slows down to meditate on one of aging’s perils: Watching her father’s Alzheimer’s advance.