Eric Dobkin: The father of the IPO

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Eric Dobkin: The father of the IPO

As part of Euromoney's 50th anniversary coverage, we profile some of the biggest names that we interviewed for our April capital markets focus.

To hear Eric Dobkin talk about Goldman Sachs, you would assume he was heading in to work at 200 West Street before the markets open tomorrow morning. But after a tenure of 49 years that only finished in 2016 when he was 73, it’s hardly a surprise. 

“I may be the longest serving individual at Goldman Sachs who was a partner,” he says.

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Eric Dobkin

Life at Goldman began for Dobkin in 1967, when he started in the firm’s Philadelphia office. Most of his first 10 years was spent in or around equity sales, before he ended up running the institutional equity business for the whole mid-west region. 

For another five years after that he came to New York and was in a series of roles – “odd jobs”, as Dobkin calls them – executing transactions that sought to take advantage of changes in market thinking, particularly around the ways in which Wall Street firms could interact with the kinds of investors that were starting to rise in importance, like pension funds and mutuals.

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