One of the 'special associates' at Goldman Sachs quit for a tech fund

Fintech is the future of finance. So says the oracle that is McKinsey & Co. At the same time, asset management firms are facing the sort of cost squeeze more commonly associated with investment banks. So, if you're leaving an investment bank now, where better to situate yourself than in a fund that invests in technology to transform the insurance and asset management industries.

This looks like the reasoning of Tomi Fyrqvist, a former associate at Goldman Sachs in London. After three and a half years at Goldman, he's just left to join Axa Strategic Ventures, the €230M ($250M) venture capital fund run by insurance firm Axa, which invests in technology to transform the insurance and asset management industries. 

Fyrqvist isn't the only investment banking associate to decide ASV looks like a good bet: Jannat Shah joined from Deutsche Bank in London in June.

Fyrqvist's exit from Goldman is interesting because he appears to have benefited from Goldman's 'accelerated analyst' program. Conceived in 2015, the program promotes Goldman's most promising analysts to associate in two years rather than three, with the intention of retaining them and discouraging them from quitting for private equity (or VC) funds. Fyrqvist seems to have been doubly special: not only was he promoted within in two years, he was also transferred from London to New York.

He left anyway.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com