Can John Thain turn Merrill Lynch around?

John Thain, Merrill Lynch's savior? Not so fast. Portfolio magazine weighs in with a long profile of Thain, the former Goldman Sachs executive who capably ran the New York Stock Exchange before arriving as CEO of Merrill Lynch. He's undergoing a baptism by fire, as he tries to navigate the firm through this thorny credit crisis. He's known as a dry technocratic sort, and the piece was meant (his PR staffer hopes) to humanize him a bit. Which it did. But he will need more than a "charm offensive" to get through this and realize his longer term goal of making Merrill Lynch more like Goldman Sachs, which in his mind doesn't mean willy-nilly use of the balance sheet. A great profile if you have time for it.  

For more:
- here's the profile

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