NEW YORK CITY — Allison Sheehan resigned from her role as a wealth manager at Goldman Sachs after the firm's compliance team intervened regarding her social media use. The compliance team instructed Sheehan to remove all posts from her social media accounts due to her use of the word "investment" in her handles for her dessert business, Alleycat Baking Co., though Sheehan said, "I did not think that anything was wrong with what I was doing."

Sheehan maintains TikTok and Instagram accounts under the handle Investment Baker. She temporarily archived her social media content after the initial directive. Sheehan later restored her social media posts to support an application to Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management for a Master of Business Administration degree. The firm's compliance team contacted her a second time three months after she restored her posts.

Sheehan accepted a corporate position at Goldman Sachs immediately after graduating from Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. She initially worked in equity trading operations at a firm campus in Salt Lake City before transferring to the firm's New York City office in September 2022. Sheehan said, "I didn't see [baking] as a viable career. I definitely fell victim to the herd mentality of 'You have to work a corporate job, it's the only way to make money.' Honestly, I had a great experience in finance up until the end."

Sheehan began selling two cakes per month to sorority sisters for approximately $100 each during her senior year in college. After leaving her corporate job, she increased her weekly dessert production to between 10 and 30 items. Sheehan said, "I got fed up by denying like 90% of my orders while I was sitting at my desk at work, doing some dumb estate planning that I didn't care about. I just wanted to be baking."

Sheehan rented a commercial kitchen in the Lower East Side for six months to increase dessert production. She discontinued her commercial kitchen lease due to reduced income. She now uses a neighbor's kitchen for baking in exchange for walking the neighbor's dog. Sheehan plans to expand her business into a consumer packaged goods brand.

No independent assessment of Allison Sheehan’s claims was available.