Ep. 157: Robin Graham, Head of Technology Investment Banking, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.

Most of the M&A activity Robin's team is seeing isn't traditional buyouts but portcos making strategic acquisitions to build out their existing platforms. Oppenheimer’s recent sale of Kentik to PE-backed Infoblox is one example. For sponsors, it’s a reason to look beyond the traditional add-on universe when building their M&A pipelines.

Oppenheimer is using an internal analytics tool to offload model-building, SEC data pulls, and other repetitive work. Robin sees the payoff not as needing fewer bankers, but as giving the existing team more capacity to process transactions and spend time with clients. The practical opportunity is to identify where AI can remove execution bottlenecks, then deliberately reinvest that capacity rather than treating efficiency as the end goal.

Robin learned that lesson rowing at Harvard, where months of repetitive training came down to a handful of six-minute races. Dealmaking requires the same discipline: keep doing the work when the payoff is distant, so you’re ready when the moment that matters arrives.