About

David Silfen is a senior director of the Goldman Sachs Group in New York. He is a retired member of the partnership’s Executive Committee and its predecessor, the Management Committee, the firm’s senior governing body. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1968 and became a partner in 1978. He was the inaugural cohead of the firm’s Equities Division, in which capacity he had worldwide responsibility for trading, sales, and capital market activities for all equity securities. Mr. Silfen became a limited partner in 1997. At the time of the firm’s incorporation the following year, he was named a senior director and remains a consultant on a wide range of activities. Currently, Mr. Silfen is also chairman and chief executive officer of Mayfair Management Co., Inc., a family office investment management firm, and a senior advisor and limited partner of Maveron Equity Partners, a Seattle-based venture capital firm.

In addition to his service on the Board of Overseers at Columbia Business School, Mr. Silfen is a member of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also chairman of the Trustees Development Committee, a member of the Board of Overseers of the university’s School of Arts & Sciences, and a member of the Penn Investment Board, which oversees the university’s endowment. Mr. Silfen currently is chairman of the Smithsonian Institution Endowment’s Investment Committee and is a former vice chairman of the Smithsonian National Board.

Mr. Silfen earned an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1968 and is a recipient of the School’s Distinguished Alumni Award. He also holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts & Sciences. He resides in New York City with his wife, Lyn. They have two grown children.