David McGovern is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm he established in 2005, and serves as the Chairman of the firm’s Executive and Investment Committees. He is actively involved in directing, promoting and overseeing Marlin’s strategic vision, ensuring adherence to the firm’s core investment principles and firm governance, and providing insight and guidance on all investment and portfolio related decisions.
Mr. McGovern has been a private equity investor since 1999 and has significant expertise in the M&A process, corporate strategy, turnarounds, acquisition integration and realizations through sales, public offerings and recapitalizations. Marlin’s investment philosophy centers around a fundamental set of principles focused on partnering with management to execute strategies for long-term value creation. Since Marlin’s inception, Mr. McGovern and the Marlin investment team have successfully initiated and executed a model of investing that seeks to provide flexible solutions to businesses that can benefit from the firm’s strong capital base, deep industry relationships and extensive network of operational resources.
Prior to his private equity career, Mr. McGovern was a senior investment banker at CIBC and an attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an editor of The Georgetown Law Journal (law review), and a B.S. in Finance with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from Louisiana State University.