Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000.
Paul Nasr, as senior managing director in Morgan Stanley thought the performance evaluation data for his brilliant producer, Rob Parson. Parson was a strong revenue producer. Nasar had promised the promotion when he recruited Parson to Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley’s people are the source of their competitive advantages. They regard team work and innovation, by developing and utilizing our employees abilities to the fullest and treating each other with dignity and respect. Their leadership, that is “one firm” recognized that clients interested with the firm at many different points of intersection.
The Capital Market Services (CMS) division at Morgan Stanley was created as part of an effort to make the firm more responsive to client needs. It was an explicitly interdisciplinary entity designed to serve as a link between the Investment Banking Division (IBD) and the sales and trading arms of the firm, Equity and Fixed Income. The organizational structure was intended to provide clients with more focused attention and service. It also was a mechanism that allowed cross-divisional and avoided feuds over how to allocate fees across different sub-units.
In Paul Nasr’s opinion, there are a lot of investment banks that have little corporate culture and little infrastructure. These are firms where the “franchise” is not attracting business: individual professionals are. The ability to go out, bring in the business, and write up the ticket depends solely on the entrepreneurial ability of the individual. This means that firms turn a blind eye to certain behaviors, because the pursuit of the business and survival were more important. If