Simon Jack and Dearbail Jordan

Business editor and business reporter, BBC News

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Goldman Sachs International’s chief executive Richard Gnodde

Goldman Sachs’ vice chair has said the bank ditched an internal diversity rule that barred it from advising all male, all white boards on company flotations because it was no longer needed.

The investment bank had pledged that it would only help a business sell its shares on a stock exchange if it had two board members that satisfied diversity requirements, one of whom had to be a woman.

But Richard Gnodde told the BBC: “That policy was put in place to try and