Morgan Stanley said Thursday CEO Ted Pick would be its next chair succeeding James Gorman, who has been tapped to head the board at Walt Disney after he steps down as executive chair of the Wall Street titan at the end of the year.
Gorman will also retire from employment at Morgan Stanley and be named chairman emeritus, the bank said. However, he will serve as non-employee adviser to the bank from January 2025 through the end of 2026.
“I am confident that with Ted’s tremendous leadership Morgan Stanley will continue its strong trajectory to even greater heights and new successes in the years ahead,” Gorman said in a statement.
The bank is upholding a Wall Street tradition by consolidating the roles of CEO and chair – a practice that has at times come under fire for potentially concentrating too much power in a single individual. Jamie Dimon and David Solomon hold both roles at JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, respectively.
Supporters, however, argue that such consolidation leads to quicker decision-making. The lead independent director of the board can offer sufficient oversight to ensure accountability, they say.
Although he’s relatively new to the CEO seat, he has certainly been with the company for a long time. There was a lot of vetting that took place to put him into the CEO role and, by all measures, so far he has continued in the footsteps of Gorman, financial services analyst at Argus Research, Stephen Biggar said.
Pick took the reins at the start of this year after winning the race to succeed longtime CEO Gorman.
Pick joined Morgan Stanley in 1990 and ran equity capital markets during the financial crisis. He was appointed head of sales and trading in 2015.
Earlier this week, Disney said that Gorman would become chairman of its board on Jan. 2.
