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Florian Plath

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Florian Plath received a career-defining call in 2022: join the deal team for Broadcom's $90 billion acquisition of VMware, one of the largest technology acquisitions in history. At the time, the German-born banker was still relatively junior at JPMorgan. He delivered, and hasn't stopped since. As an Executive Director in JPMorgan's M&A group operating from San Francisco, Plath has since advised on Altair's $10.6 billion sale to Siemens, Altium's $6 billion sale to Renesas, and — earlier in his career — Maxim Integrated's $29 billion all-stock merger with Analog Devices, one of the largest semiconductor transactions on record. His deal sheet is heavily weighted toward the semiconductor and deep-tech sectors that are reshaping the global economy. Plath's international background gives him a perspective most U.S.-based bankers lack. Born and raised in Germany, educated in Asia, based in London before moving to San Francisco in 2018, he started at JPMorgan as an intern in the London office and worked his way to a senior advisory role through sheer volume of complex, high-stakes execution. "Right from the start, I knew I wanted to, at some point if the opportunity arose, to live and work in the US," he has said, pointing to America's position as the leading capital market. He's also served as a staffer for JPMorgan's North America analyst and associate program, reflecting the same commitment to talent development that characterizes the best senior bankers. An avid runner who credits sports with keeping him grounded, Plath describes banking as "a team sport" focused on doing right by clients, the firm, and employees. With no meaningful public profile beyond his BI feature, Plath is a stealth operator advising on some of the largest and most strategically important deals in technology. The gap between his deal volume and his visibility is substantial — and represents the kind of under-the-radar impact that defines the best bankers: the deals make headlines, the bankers don't.

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