U.S. News offers an interesting article about how some disgraced executives have "failed up." That is, they ended up with plum jobs despite their infamy.

When it comes to financial services executives, not all have "failed up". Some have failed sideways and some have just plan failed. Of note, former Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal--who led the aggressive push into residential mortgages--has been hired as a director at Alcoa. He's probably pursuing more board positions. Dow Kim, who oversaw the CDO empire at Merrill Lynch before the implosion, tried to start a hedge fund, with uncertain results. Charles Prince, who was forced to resign as CEO of Citigroup, is now "keeping a low profile."

Thomas Maheras, former co-CEO of Citigroup's investment bank and key architect of the bank's CDOs business, was hired as a director at Discover Financial Services. He also started Tegean Capital Management. John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, was once thought to be a contender for the CEO job at Bank of America, "Was instead forced out of the merged firm in early 2009." He's now at CIT, where his pay was $6 million per year in cash and stock, plus an annual bonus of up to $1.5 million.

There are many others who ought to be on this list. Where are they now?

For more:
- here's the article

Related articles:
Directors of failed banks reemerge  
The CEO merry go round