- Feroz Khosla, part of Goldman Sachs' financing group, was named a Goldman partner on Thursday.
- At 35 years old, Khosla is the youngest member of the firm's new class of partners for 2024.
- Khosla, who was previously one of BI's 2024 Rising Stars, spoke to us about celebrating this win.
Feroz Khosla was seated at his desk at Goldman Sachs' lower Manhattan headquarters when the call came in.
On the line was John Waldron, Goldman's president and chief operating officer, who asked Khosla how he was feeling. "Something tells me I'll feel a lot better after this phone call," Khosla said. The two men exchanged a laugh, and then Waldron delivered the news.
"We'd like to welcome you into the partnership," Khosla recounted Waldron telling him. "I look forward to calling you my partner."
Khosla is one of 95 Goldman executives who got a call like this on Thursday, part of a biennial ritual intended to honor and uphold the firm's genesis as a partnership. At 35, Khosla is the youngest member of the 2024 partner class. He's also one of the 29% of new partners who joined Goldman as a summer intern — 2009 in Khosla's case.
Goldman Sachs partners comprise the firm's highest-ranking executives outside the C-Suite, responsible for units representing billions of dollars in business.
Khosla works in the financing group within Goldman's global banking and capital markets division, where he leads the investment-grade-financing and corporate-derivatives business for healthcare and real estate. He works with CFO and treasury clients on their capital structure and financing needs and advises them on the implications of macro risks on specific transactions, like fluctuation in interest rates or currency valuations.
The corporate-derivatives business is housed within Goldman's overall financing unit, which encompasses both equity and debt underwriting. Increased lending needs from corporate borrowers helped lift Goldman's debt underwriting revenues by 46% in the third quarter versus the same time in 2023.
In an interview with BI, Khosla walked Business Insider through this pivotal day in his career, from who he called first to how he celebrated with his family and his boss.
Champagne toasts, 'welcome to the family'
"The responsibility part absolutely gets deeper, heavier," Khosla said of the partner title. Still, he and some of his newly minted fellow partners have been making time to celebrate.
At the office on Thursday, some new partners indulged in cake with their teams, one insider said. There were also celebratory dinners across Manhattan. Khosla, one of BI's 2024 Rising Stars of Wall Street, attended a dinner hosted by Vivek Bantwal, Goldman's global head of financing, who heads Khosla's group, as well as other current partners.
Bantwal and the other partners invited about 15 people — new partners and their spouses — to a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, where Bantwal cracked open what Khosla called "a very special bottle of Champagne that had been given to him by another partner, and he'd been saving for an occasion like this."
At one point, someone leaned over and said to Khosla's wife: "Welcome to the family," he said.
In his interview with BI on Friday, Khosla recognized his team's contributions in helping him make partner, saying he intends to call every person in his department — from junior analysts all the way up to other partners — to thank them. "Goldman Sachs was the first family that I really had when I left India," he said, adding: "Frankly, it's the only jersey I want to wear."
He already thanked his loved ones. His parents, he said, are from India, and made sacrifices to send him to America to pursue his education. His wife, Lucy, is no stranger to canceling appointments to care for their kids, ages 2 and 4, when work has kept Khosla late.
"I immediately texted my father just to say, 'We did it,'" he recalled. "Then I called my wife and I thanked her and congratulated her," he said, adding, "This is not just one individual's day, and I think it won't be one individual's celebration."
Khosla said he and his wife are hoping to use this new achievement to advance opportunities for his children. Education, he said, was vital to his upbringing: His parents laminated multiplication tables for their kids to use as placemats while eating. Being quizzed by his mom as she drove him to school, he said, kept him sharp.
Khosla said he recognizes there's a lot of work ahead to prove he's deserving of the title. One way he pumps himself up, he said, is with playlists of movie trailers he listens to while running.
In contemplating which trailer might best depict the current point in his career, he said: "Mission Impossible."
Are you a Goldman Sachs insider? Get in touch with this reporter. Reed Alexander can be reached via email at [email protected], or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.