John Mack on the hot seat

John Mack, so far, has been spared the same fate as Merrill Lynch's Stanley O'Neal, Citigroup's Chuck Prince and Bear Stearns' Jimmy Cayne. But the CEO and chairman of Morgan Stanley has a lot weighing on him right now. At least one activist shareholder group is weighing a campaign to install an independent chairman, according to the New York Times. It's been a tough road for the man many thought would save Morgan Stanley. He championed the use of risk, perhaps eying the results at archrival Goldman Sachs. But the aggressive deployment of the balance sheet seemed to backfire when the credit crunch hit. The board, so far, has voiced confidence in Mack as chairman and CEO. But a nice symbolic move--one to underscore that it's taking its role seriously--would be to separate the positions.

For more:
- here's the New York Times article

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