John Mack will step down as CEO of Morgan Stanley, effective Jan. 1. He'll serve for two more years as chairman. He hands the CEO job to co-president James Gorman, whom the board approved after a search of other candidates. What to make of the news? Mack is certainly a survivor. Despite a lot of doubt, he--and Morgan Stanley--survived the credit crisis as a standalone company.

But, no doubt, the firm has been weakened. It has watched Goldman Sachs grab the pole position as the post-crisis industry takes shape. And it is fending off rising firms like JPMorgan Chase. Gorman brings retail roots to the firm. He joined Morgan Stanley in August 2005 to run the retail brokerage division. He worked at Merrill Lynch before that. So it falls to him to figure out a business model that will carry Morgan into the future.

For more:
- here's the Bloomberg article

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