Benoît Valentin, a former private equity managing director at Goldman Sachs, has joined buyout firm Cinven. His departure follows that of Richard Sharp, who quit as Goldman's chairman of European private equity earlier this month.

Valentin joins Cinven as a partner in its London office after a 12 year stint at Goldman, where he initially worked as an investment banker. Recently he has been involved in some of the bank's largest private equity transactions across Europe.