Krawcheck in; Sontag Out

Dan Sontag has been at Merrill Lynch since 1978. He started as a broker, ran offices, divisions and then the entire sales force. I talk to dozens of Merrill Advisors a week. Though it’s safe to say that no executive is universally admired, Mr. Sontag has the respect of 99% of his sales force and was liked and appreciated by the overwhelming majority of them. Having him in charge of the legacy Merrill Lynch sales force under Bank of America was a tangible connection to the Merrill culture. It showed this cynical headhunter that senior management at Bank of America appreciated what Merrill was as it tried to integrate two very different companies. Time in Wealth Management: 31 years. Time with Merrill Lynch: 31 years.

Sallie Krawcheck is a brilliant, charismatic executive. Advisers tell me that she was an effective one-on-one recruiter and listener. She was also consistently in front of clients, either in groups or one on one, such that her sales force often requested her as a speaker. Her time at Citicorp, however, is not without controversy. She was hired by Sandy Weill in the wake of the research scandal based on her reputation as an ethical, accurate, insightful analyst at Sanford Bernstein. With no prior wealth management experience, in the field or in management, she was made the head of Smith Barney’s Wealth Management business. After two years, she was promoted to be CFO of Citi, (that’s not the point of this blog, though thorough examination of her time as CFO, to my knowledge, has not been covered sufficiently anywhere), and then went back to run Smith Barney, where she spent another two years. So, total time in Wealth Management: four years. Time with Merrill Lynch: 0

Many Merrill Advisors somehow thought that the Bank of America takeover was benign; they would leave Merrill alone out of appreciation or respect for the culture of achievement and professionalism that were Merrill Lynch hallmarks.

Think again.