Goldman Sachs ( GS )’ chief financial officer Denis Coleman thinks the market is underestimating major rising global risks.
“To say that there is geopolitical uncertainty in the world would be a gross understatement,” Coleman said at the 2024 Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference on Tuesday.
Coleman pointed to the “multiple governments being overthrown or being threatened to be overthrown” in the past few weeks, including the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria by rebel forces and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law. That’s in addition to the escalating wars in the Gaza and Ukraine.
Aside from geopolitical turmoil, Coleman said “the breadth of cyber risk in the world is also very elevated.” With increasing access to powerful technologies, including artificial intelligence, bad actors have even more capabilities at their fingertips to carry out cyberattacks and threaten online systems.
He said, however, that the collaboration between the private sector and the U.S. government in the cybersecurity arenais “absolutely excellent.”
“It is very synced up, very coordinated,” Coleman said. The federal government has a number of cybersecurity laws and guardrails, including the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, which allows for public-private partnerships to strengthen cybersecurity.
Still, Coleman said this “panoply of risks” will have knock-on effects on businesses and markets.
The concerns around geopolitical risks echo sentiments from other leaders within the banking sector, who have cited rising unrest around the world as a major threat.
Citi ( C ) CEO Jane Fraser said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday that geopolitics will be the “biggest ground shift in the world of finance” and is “certainly going to be a big differentiator,” in addition to technology and the green transition.
In October, JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ) CEO Jamie Dimon similarly warned that geopolitical conditions are “treacherous and getting worse.”
“There is significant human suffering, and the outcome of these situations could have far-reaching effects on both short-term economic outcomes and more importantly on the course of history,” he said
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