Ted Pick

Ted Pick
Born	Edward Noel Pick 31 10, 1968
Birthplace	New York City, United States
Nationality	American
Title	Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Employer	Morgan Stanley
Known for	CEO of Morgan Stanley
Education	Harvard Business School (MBA)
Children	2

Edward Noel "Ted" Pick (born October 31, 1968) is an American banker and financial executive who has served as the chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley since January 2024 and as the company's chairman since January 2025. A career-long Morgan Stanley executive, Pick spent more than three decades at the firm, rising through its trading and institutional securities divisions before being named successor to James Gorman. Prior to assuming the top role, he served as co-president of the firm, co-head of firm strategy, and head of the Institutional Securities Group, where he oversaw investment banking, equities, fixed income, global capital markets, and research. Known within the firm for his quantitative acumen and direct communication style, Pick has been characterized as a "math whiz among math whizzes" and a straight-talking leader who has shaped Morgan Stanley's trading business into one of the most profitable on Wall Street.

Early Life

Ted Pick was born Edward Noel Pick on October 31, 1968, in New York City. He grew up in the New York metropolitan area. Pick developed an early aptitude for mathematics and analytical thinking, qualities that would later define his career trajectory in finance.

Details of Pick's family background and childhood have remained largely private, though public records indicate he married Betsey Kittenplan in October 2000 in a ceremony reported by The New York Times. The couple have two children.

Pick's New York City upbringing placed him in proximity to the financial industry from an early age. His subsequent educational and professional choices reflected a sustained interest in finance and capital markets that began during his formative years.

Education

Pick attended Middlebury College, a liberal arts institution in Vermont, for his undergraduate education. He subsequently earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School. His education at Harvard provided the foundation for a career in institutional finance, and he joined Morgan Stanley shortly after completing his graduate studies.

Career

Early Career at Morgan Stanley

Pick joined Morgan Stanley in the early 1990s after completing his MBA at Harvard Business School, making the firm his sole employer throughout his professional career. According to Bloomberg, Pick was "barely hired" at Morgan Stanley, suggesting that his entry into the firm was not guaranteed but that he quickly distinguished himself once there. He began his career on the trading side of the business, an area where his mathematical abilities and analytical skills proved particularly well-suited.

Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, Pick advanced through various positions within Morgan Stanley's trading operations. His career trajectory was notable for its concentration within a single institution at a time when lateral moves between Wall Street banks were common among ambitious executives. A Belgian financial publication described him as an "ex-trader" who became the head of Morgan Stanley, underscoring the trading roots of his career.

Rise Through Institutional Securities

Pick's ascent within Morgan Stanley accelerated as he took on leadership roles within the firm's institutional securities operations. He eventually became head of the Institutional Securities Group (ISG), the division responsible for Morgan Stanley's investment banking, equities trading, fixed income, global capital markets, and research operations. The ISG represented the core of Morgan Stanley's Wall Street business and was the firm's largest revenue-generating division.

Under Pick's leadership, the equities trading business at Morgan Stanley underwent a significant transformation. Bloomberg reported in 2021 that Pick was regarded as a "trading savior" at the firm, a reference to his role in rebuilding and strengthening the equities franchise. By 2024, Morgan Stanley had emerged as a dominant force in equities trading among major Wall Street banks, with Bloomberg noting that the firm had "surged ahead" in the equities business relative to competitors including Goldman Sachs.

Pick's quantitative approach to the trading business was a defining characteristic of his leadership. The Wall Street Journal described him as "a math whiz among math whizzes," noting his analytical and data-driven approach to managing the firm's trading operations. This reputation for quantitative rigor helped distinguish him among Morgan Stanley's senior leadership and was a factor in his eventual selection as CEO.

Co-President and CEO Succession

In 2023, Pick was named co-president of Morgan Stanley and co-head of firm strategy, positions that placed him alongside other senior executives as a potential successor to CEO James Gorman. Business Insider reported on Pick as one of the executives most likely to become the next CEO, profiling his background and leadership style.

On October 25, 2023, Morgan Stanley announced that Pick had been selected as the firm's next chief executive officer, succeeding James Gorman. The announcement was reported by major financial publications including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Fortune. Reuters published a profile detailing five key facts about the incoming CEO, noting his long tenure at the firm and his background in trading.

The selection of Pick represented a return to a trading-oriented leader at the helm of Morgan Stanley. Gorman, his predecessor, had been known primarily for expanding the firm's wealth management business through major acquisitions. Pick's background in institutional securities and trading signaled a potential shift in strategic emphasis, though he was expected to maintain the diversified business model that Gorman had built.

Reuters characterized Pick as a "straight-talking" executive in a December 2023 profile detailing his preparation to take charge of the firm. The profile noted his direct communication style, a quality that had defined his leadership throughout his career at the firm.

Tenure as CEO

Pick formally assumed the role of chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley in January 2024. In his first year as CEO, he oversaw a period of strong financial performance at the firm. Morgan Stanley's market value reached approximately $223 billion, with the firm's share price rising significantly during his initial tenure.

In January 2025, Pick was additionally named chairman of Morgan Stanley, consolidating the top leadership roles at the firm. This dual appointment as chairman and CEO gave Pick full authority over both the management and governance of one of Wall Street's largest financial institutions.

During 2025, Pick expressed optimism about the dealmaking environment. In January 2026, Bloomberg reported that Pick described himself as "pretty amped up" about the mergers and acquisitions landscape, stating that companies were in "excellent" health and that the dealmaking environment was "thriving."

An analysis published by the Eurasia Review in January 2026 characterized Pick's leadership approach as "unconventional" by Wall Street standards, describing him as a "maverick" in an industry where the unspoken rule is to "go with the trend." The analysis, authored by Xia Ri, examined a series of strategic moves that Pick had undertaken as CEO that diverged from prevailing industry trends.

Morgan Stanley reported record financial results for 2025, a performance that was reflected in Pick's compensation. In February 2026, the firm announced that it had approved total compensation of $45 million for Pick for the 2025 fiscal year, a 32 percent increase from the $34 million he received in his first year as CEO in 2024. Bloomberg noted that the pay increase came "after a record year for the Wall Street firm."

The $45 million compensation package placed Pick among the highest-paid executives in the banking industry. Banking Dive reported that the figure "adds to evidence that $40 million is the emerging benchmark by which big-bank CEO annual compensation is measured," placing Pick's pay in the context of a broader trend of rising compensation among leaders of major financial institutions. The Banking Dive report placed Pick's compensation alongside that of other major bank CEOs including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs.

Personal Life

Pick married Betsey Kittenplan in October 2000, as reported in the wedding announcements section of The New York Times. The couple have two children.

Pick has maintained a relatively low public profile outside of his professional responsibilities, a characteristic noted in several profiles published at the time of his CEO appointment. His direct and straightforward communication style has been a consistent theme in media coverage, with Reuters describing him as "straight-talking" in its profile of the incoming CEO.

Pick has spent his entire professional career at Morgan Stanley, a tenure spanning more than three decades. This longevity at a single institution is notable in the financial services industry, where executive mobility between firms is common. His career-long association with Morgan Stanley has been cited as evidence of his deep institutional knowledge and commitment to the firm's culture and strategy.

Recognition

Pick's appointment as CEO of Morgan Stanley in 2023 generated extensive coverage in major financial and general-interest media outlets. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, Fortune, and Business Insider all published profiles or analyses of Pick at the time of the announcement.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted his quantitative abilities in its coverage, characterizing him as "a math whiz among math whizzes" — a description that has become closely associated with Pick in media accounts. Bloomberg's 2021 profile described him as a "trading savior" for his role in strengthening Morgan Stanley's equities business.

His compensation of $45 million for 2025 placed him among the highest-paid banking executives in the United States, a distinction reported by Reuters, Bloomberg, Banking Dive, and other financial media outlets.

The Eurasia Review's 2026 analysis described Pick as "Wall Street's Maverick," recognizing what the publication characterized as an unconventional approach to leading one of the world's largest financial institutions.

Legacy

As of early 2026, Pick's tenure as CEO of Morgan Stanley is in its early stages, making comprehensive assessments of his legacy premature. However, several aspects of his leadership have already generated significant attention in the financial industry.

Pick's career-long commitment to Morgan Stanley, spanning more than three decades from his initial hiring to the chairman and CEO role, represents an increasingly rare trajectory in modern Wall Street. His rise from the trading floor to the firm's top position underscores the continued importance of institutional securities and trading expertise in the leadership of major investment banks.

The record financial performance achieved by Morgan Stanley in 2025, Pick's first full year combining both the CEO and chairman roles, established an early benchmark for his leadership. His expressed optimism about the mergers and acquisitions landscape and his characterization of the dealmaking environment as "thriving" signaled a focus on growth in Morgan Stanley's advisory and investment banking businesses alongside its established strengths in trading and wealth management.

Pick's leadership style — characterized by directness, quantitative rigor, and what has been described as an unconventional approach — represents a distinct chapter in Morgan Stanley's history, following the wealth-management-focused era under James Gorman. Whether his approach will result in a fundamental shift in the firm's strategic direction or a continuation and refinement of the diversified model built by his predecessor remains a subject of ongoing observation by analysts and industry commentators.