About Us

Persevent Group was founded by Billy Goldstein (billy.goldstein@persevent.com), a senior strategy, finance and operating executive who is also the CEO of the group.  Mr. Goldstein has a consistent and proven ability to help companies grow, effect change, and achieve their most critical strategic goals.

Throughout his career, Mr. Goldstein has developed a deep understanding of business management, finance, operations, capital markets, strategy and human motivation.  As an investment banker for almost 17 years, Billy worked with hundreds of public, private and sponsor-backed companies globally to raise over $36 billion in debt and equity and execute M&A transaction with aggregate value of over $100 billion.  He developed keen commercial instincts and an appreciation for the best practices employed by successful companies and investors, as well as for the critical pitfalls to avoid. He applied that in a corporate setting leading strategy & corporate development and acquiring six companies, integrating and managing many of the acquired businesses. His creative approach to problems and opportunities, as well as his energy, integrity, interpersonal style and orientation toward action, are differentiating factors noted by Billy’s colleagues and clients.

Most recently, Mr. Goldstein was EVP of Strategy and Corporate Development/M&A at Sterling (a 4,500-person portfolio company of Goldman Sachs) which he helped grow via acquisitions and synergies into the world’s largest provider of background screening and ID verification services.  In addition to his involvement sourcing, executing and integrating acquisitions, he also led two of the acquired businesses.  Billy was a member of Sterling’s executive committee.  

Mr. Goldstein spent five years as Managing Director and Head of North America Telecom Investment and Merchant Banking at Macquarie Capital (ASX:MQG), a global financial institution with 13,900 employees and over $350 billion of AUM.  Billy helped grow the investment bank in the U.S. by creating a team and building a successful telecom banking franchise.   He also sourced and evaluated principal telecom investments globally and was a founding member of the firm’s M&A Fairness Committee.

From 1998 through 2009, Mr. Goldstein was with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) where he was a managing director in the Investment Bank’s TMT group.  He advised many of the firm’s most important TMT clients including AT&T, Sprint, SBC, BCE, Hughes, Thomson/Reuters, Alltel, Intelsat and Telesat.  Mr. Goldstein was Co-head of the Global Satellite Sector, Head of the Wireless Tower Sector, and Co-head of the Hispanic/Latin Investment Banking Network.

Prior to working at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Goldstein worked at J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM), AT&T Bell Labs (now Alcatel-Lucent) and GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE).

Mr. Goldstein holds an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School and a BSE, summa cum laude, in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.  He’s a Senior Advisor at Star Mountain Capital, a Board Member of the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation and a Board Trustee of Temple Beth Sholom.