Colm Kelleher to retire as Morgan Stanley’s president

According to a memo to Morgan Stanley’s employees, its president, Colm Kelleher, will be retiring in June, 2019. This information was made available to the employees of the bank on Thursday, 28th March 20119. Colm Kelleher who is the current president of Morgan Stanley had been working for the bank for the past 30 years.

According to the memo which was sent by the bank’s Chief Executive, James Gorman, Kelleher who is aged 61, will however remain as a senior adviser to the bank. At the time of this report, no replacement has been mentioned to take the vacant position which Kelleher will leave after retirement.

Kelleher assumed the position of the president of the bank in January 2016, and had over this period been widely known to be Gorman’s second-in-command. There have been wide spread speculations that Kelleher would be a possible successor to the CEO if Gorman ever needed to step down suddenly.  This was however not though as a permanent successor as Kelleher is older than Gorman who is aged 60, and so there was not time Kelleher was thought of as a permanent successor, but his departure “raises some succession concerns near term” for the bank.

Before ascending the position of the president, Kelleher has earlier served as chief financial officer and co-head of corporate strategy between October 2007 and December 2009. This periods which Kelleher served as chief financial officer and co-head of corporate strategy was described by Gorman as  “critical period” with credited Kelleher’s leadership during the period contributed in “helping the firm navigate the depths of the financial crisis.”

During the period while Kelleher was the chief financial officer, Morgan Stanley drastically shrank its balance sheet, became a bank holding company, which meant it could access funding from the Federal Reserve, and secured a $9 billion investment from Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. From being a chief financial officer Kelleher went on to become co-president and then president of institutional securities, as well as the head of international for the bank.

In recognizing the roles Kelleher performed in steering the boat of Morgan Stanley aright, Gorman stated that “Every time I have faced an issue of real significance Colm has been the most important person I have sought advice from.”

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