Listed private equity firm 3i has drafted in a former partner at Goldman Sachs as a non-executive board director to help expand its business beyond its home UK market.

Willem Mesdag spent 21 years at Goldman and was made partner at the Wall Street bank in 1990, before leaving in 2001 to set up his own US investment company, Red Mountain Capital Partners. Mesdag worked for Goldman in the US, UK and Germany, and led various divisions at the bank including the capital markets group, the asset securitisation team and the European financial institutions group.