Toby Bates is a Director at Merlin and specialises in financial services, leisure and consumer sectors. He joined in 2008 from Goldman Sachs’ London office where he was handling corporate communications for that firm’s global investment banking business. During his seven years with Goldman Sachs overseeing communications strategy for mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, asset management, trading and real estate investment, Toby had extensive media-relations experience in connection with many of the world's largest transactions, acting as confidential in-house PR counsel to investment bankers and the firm's clients.

Prior to Goldman Sachs, Toby worked at Burson-Marsteller where he provided strategic advice to a wide range of international clients. Toby graduated from Newcastle University in 1995 with a BA Hons and holds the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma.