Eric Golden

Founder & Managing Partner
Fluential Partners LLC

Named Investment Banker of the Year at the L.A. Business Journal’s 2025 M&A Awards, Eric Golden is the founder and managing partner of Fluential Partners, a Santa Monica-based investment bank focused on M&A and capital raising for the middle market. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he served as special counsel to the chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes before becoming EVP and general counsel of Panavision. Golden left in 2005 to acquire film equipment businesses, partnering with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown to found Equipois, which won the L.A. Business Journal’s 2010 Soon-Shiong Innovation Award. He founded Fluential in 2020 and in 2025 the firm closed the first tranche of a multi-hundred-million-dollar financing for a utility-scale solar developer projected to cut power costs by up to 80%.