When Yoel Zaoui first arrived in London to work for Goldman Sachs’ European investment banking business 21 years ago, the US bank was a start-up looking to win business in a market dominated by old-style British merchant banks such as Kleinwort Benson and SG Warburg.

Fast-forward two decades, and the fortunes of Goldman Sachs' European M&A business and those of the Moroccan-born Frenchman have followed a remarkable upward trajectory.