This is the fourth piece in a series on the bankers who run Wall Street’s largest mergers and acquisitions teams. The first looked at Tom Miles, global co-head of M&A at Morgan Stanley. The second looked at Stephan Feldgoise, head of global M&A at Goldman Sachs. The third looked at Anu Aiyengar, who ran JPMorgan’s franchise before moving up to global chair. At Barclays things are done differently. Instead of an internal promotion, Barclays has been looking externally for its head of M&A.
On April 8, 2025, Barclays announced that Andrew Woeber was joining as global head of M&A. The announcement described him as formerly a partner at Centerview. He is based in New York, sits on the Investment Banking Management Team, and reports to Cathal Deasy and Taylor Wright, the global co-heads of investment banking. He studied law at Harvard, economics at Stanford, and started his career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. This was followed by leadership roles at Morgan Stanley, Greenhill and Centerview.
Who runs M&A at Barclays?
Two co-heads were in the job before Woeber. Gary Posternack asked to step back in 2024, to spend more time with clients, and became chairman of global M&A. He is still there. Ihsan Essaid, who had joined from Credit Suisse in 2021 and been made co-head with him in March 2022, became sole head that April. About six weeks later Essaid left to be the first finance chief at QXO, Brad Jacobs’s building-products company. The role was open for close to a year. In April 2025 Barclays filled it from outside, with Woeber.
The bank did not have anyone internally to promote. Essaid had gone to an industrial company, not to a rival bank, and Posternack had already left the operating role.
How did Woeber get here?
He started as a corporate lawyer at Cravath in New York, working on mergers, before he moved into banking. From Cravath he went to Morgan Stanley, then to Greenhill, then to partner at Centerview, where he advised chief executives on strategic transactions. The announcement describes him as formerly a partner at Centerview. His FINRA report shows that job ending in October 2022, then Industry Partners LLC until March 2025. In April 2025 he joined Barclays to run M&A.
What is on his client list?
Barclays’ announcement names the companies he has advised on mergers and financing: Amphenol, Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Comcast, Dolby, KKR, Safeway, Schwab, Sprint, Time Warner, Verizon, Volvo and Wells Fargo.
What has Woeber said since he arrived?
In September 2025, five months in, he said client mood had “shifted from caution to confidence and action,” and that a deal above $100 billion in artificial intelligence would not surprise him within a year. “Big platforms are going to make big bets.” In The Banker he said the bank was still investing “to strengthen Barclays’ position as a durable, consistent, top global M&A practice.” In January 2026 he sat with Deasy for a Barclays film about the outlook for the year. Since he arrived that is his public record: one interview, one quote, one film. No announcement since he arrived has named him as the banker on a deal.
Is Barclays competing in M&A?
The bank is certainly competing on the general M&A tables, but not near the top. In the first quarter of 2026 it was fourteenth in the Americas, on about $14.1 billion across 16 deals. Goldman was on $159.3 billion.
Financial services M&A is a shorter list. It counts only deals for banks, insurers and asset managers. On that list Barclays was the top adviser by deal value in the first quarter of 2026, on $31.4 billion, up from eighth a year earlier. It remained first in the first half, on $37.3 billion, up 17.2 percent. Half of the deals were above $1 billion, including two above $5 billion.
In that same first quarter the investment bank passed £4 billion of income for the first time. Advisory fees rose 78 percent, to £255 million. Equity capital markets income rose 31 percent. The advisory figure is still small next to the financing book.
What does the bank want from the hire?
On the appointment, Deasy said strategic advisory “forms the foundation of many of our most valued and long-standing client relationships, while also serving as an attractive and fee-based franchise for the Investment Bank.” Barclays has treated a larger share of M&A as one of the income levers in its three-year plan. Advisory is the part of the investment bank that uses little capital. In the first quarter it was £255 million, against more than £4 billion of investment-bank income.
What happens next?
Posternack is still chairman. The operating job was empty for close to a year before Woeber arrived. First place in financial services is not the same as a top-five seat on the general table against Goldman, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.
Will a hire from outside pay off if, a year and a half on, no announcement has named him on a deal?
Author: Tejas Bansal
See Also:
Who Is Tom Miles? The Banker Behind Morgan Stanley’s European M&A Surge | Disruption Banking
Who Is Anu Aiyengar? The First Woman to Run M&A on Wall Street | Disruption Banking
