Finally, after months of speculation, Morgan Stanley has announced that insider Edward “Ted” Pick will replace its outgoing CEO James Gorman, who has held the top job for more than a decade.
Pick, a Morgan Stanley veteran who rose through the ranks to lead the bank’s Wall Street operations, will report for duty as the company’s chief executive starting Jan. 1, 2024.
He will also join the New York-based bank’s board. Meanwhile, Gorman will stay on as executive chairman for an undisclosed period.
“Through the transition period and my time as Executive Chairman, I will do everything I can to support Ted as our new CEO,” the outbound chief wrote in a statement.
So who is Ted Pick?
Born in New York City, Pick’s father's work in petrochemicals saw the family uproot to Venezuela for a few years before returning to the States.
The 54-year-old banker graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Middlebury College and received an MBA from the Harvard Business School, before joining Morgan Stanley in 1990 at just 21 years old.
He was the last person hired into his analyst class, Bloomberg reports, and was known early in his career for his colorful vocabulary, but after the modest start rose quickly through Morgan Stanley's ranks.
By 2002, he had climbed the ranks to managing director and earned his reputation for turning the firm’s fixed-income division around and raise capital following the 2008 global financial crisis.
He was briefly the organization’s head of equity capital markets, working on notable IPOs, including broadcast.com, Google, China Construction Bank and Blackstone, before being promoted to oversee both stock and debt trading where under his watch market share among the five big U.S. firms doubled.
By 2018 he was promoted again to his most recent role as head of the institutional securities group—and by then was already considered a front-runner for the CEO position.
On top of leading a 9,000-strong workforce in his day job, Pick was also a member of the company’s operating committee, management committee and the Morgan Stanley-MUFG steering committee.
Over the 30-plus years that Pick has worked at the bank, he has earned a reputation for "bleeding Morgan Stanley blue", a former colleague told Insider. “He's a lot more like John Mack than James Gorman in terms of style," an ex-managing director added, referring to Gorman's predecessor.
Outside of work, Pick resides in New York with his two daughters and wife Betsey Kittenplan.
James Gorman says Pick is ‘battle-tested’
James Gorman joined Morgan Stanley in February 2006 and became co-president the following year. He then steered the bank in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and by January 2010, he took the company’s helm.
Since the company announced in May that Gorman would retire in the next year and that his successor would be one of the bank’s three main division heads, all eyes have been on Pick, Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz.
Although Pick beat the strong internal candidates to the top role, his colleagues have both been promoted: Saperstein is set to take on additional responsibilities, including overseeing the investment management division. Meanwhile, Simkowitz who was the head of investment management, will now become the company’s co-president and head of institutional securities.
“The Board’s selection of Ted Pick is an outstanding one,” Gorman said of his successor in the release. “I have worked side by side with Ted since the financial crisis and have experienced first-hand his values, intellect, passion and commitment to our people and our clients.”
“He is battle-tested, understands complex risk, and works very effectively not just in the U.S., but around the globe,” Gorman added.
Meanwhile, Pick praised his former boss’s “excellent leadership” in the release, adding: “Our Firm is now well-positioned to succeed across market cycles, and I am excited about the opportunities for future growth.”
