William David Cohan (born February 20, 1960, in Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American business journalist, author, and former investment banker. His father was an accountant and his mother worked in administration. Cohan spent 17 years as a senior mergers and acquisitions (M&A) investment banker at Lazard Frères & Co., Merrill Lynch, and JPMorganChase before transitioning to journalism. He is a graduate of Duke University, Columbia University School of Journalism, and Columbia University. Cohan is a New York Times bestselling author of non-fiction books about Wall Street, including 'Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World,' and has profiled figures such as Jeffrey Epstein for media outlets. He contributes regularly to publications like Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, the New York Times, Air Mail, and the Financial Times. He is a founding partner at Puck and a former special correspondent for Vanity Fair, as well as a CNBC contributor. He lives in New York.