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 serves as the chairman and chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, one of the largest investment banks and financial services firms in the world. He assumed the role of CEO in January 2024, succeeding James Gorman, and became chairman of the board in January 2025. A career Morgan Stanley executive, Pick spent more than three decades at the firm, rising through its trading and investment banking divisions before being named to the top post. Prior to becoming CEO, he served as co-president, 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. Described as a "math whiz among math whizzes" by The Wall Street Journal, Pick's ascent reflected both his deep expertise in trading and his ability to navigate Morgan Stanley's evolving strategic priorities over a period of significant transformation in the global banking industry.

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 and showed an early aptitude for mathematics and analytical thinking, traits that would later define his career in finance.

Details about Pick's family background and childhood remain limited in public reporting. His wedding announcement in The New York Times in 2000 provided some biographical details, noting his professional affiliations at the time and his educational background. Pick came of age during the 1980s, a period of rapid expansion and transformation on Wall Street, and pursued a career in financial services shortly after completing his education.

Education

Pick attended Middlebury College, a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, where he completed his undergraduate studies. He later earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School, one of the most selective graduate business programs in the United States. His educational background combined a liberal arts foundation with rigorous business training, equipping him for a career that would span trading, investment banking, and senior management at one of the world's largest financial institutions.

Career

Early Career at Morgan Stanley

Pick joined Morgan Stanley in 1990, beginning a career at the firm that would span more than three decades. He entered the firm's trading operations, an area that would become the foundation of his professional identity and his primary area of expertise for much of his tenure. His early work centered on equity and equity-related products, and he quickly developed a reputation for quantitative acuity and an understanding of complex financial instruments.

During the 1990s, Pick rose through the ranks of Morgan Stanley's trading division. His skills in quantitative analysis and risk management helped him stand out among his peers, with The Wall Street Journal later noting his reputation as a "math whiz among math whizzes" on a trading floor populated with individuals known for their analytical abilities. This period coincided with a significant expansion of global capital markets and the increasing role of technology and quantitative strategies in trading.

Head of Equities and Trading Leadership

Pick took on increasingly senior roles within Morgan Stanley's equities business over the course of the 2000s and 2010s. He became a key figure in the firm's sales and trading operations, eventually assuming leadership of the equities division. Bloomberg News described him as a "trading savior" for the firm, crediting him with revitalizing Morgan Stanley's equities franchise, which had faced competitive challenges in the years following the 2008 financial crisis.

Under Pick's leadership, Morgan Stanley's equities business grew significantly, and the firm emerged as one of the top players in global equities trading. By 2024, Morgan Stanley had surged ahead of rivals including Goldman Sachs in equities trading revenue, a development that was attributed in part to the strategic direction Pick had set during his time leading the division.

His success in equities marked him as one of the firm's most consequential operating executives and placed him on the shortlist of potential successors to CEO James Gorman.

Head of Institutional Securities Group

Pick was named head of Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities Group (ISG), the division encompassing the firm's investment banking, equities, fixed income, global capital markets, and research operations. This role placed him in charge of what was historically the core of Morgan Stanley's business and represented one of the largest and most complex operating divisions of any Wall Street firm.

In this capacity, Pick oversaw a broad portfolio of businesses that included advising corporations on mergers and acquisitions, underwriting equity and debt offerings, executing trades for institutional clients, and producing research on markets and securities. His oversight of such a wide-ranging group of businesses demonstrated his ability to manage across multiple disciplines within the investment banking industry.

Co-President and Succession

In May 2023, Morgan Stanley reorganized its senior management as part of a succession process initiated by then-CEO James Gorman. Pick was named co-president of the firm and co-head of firm strategy, alongside other senior executives, in what was viewed as the final phase of a competition to succeed Gorman. The co-president role signaled that Pick was among the top candidates to lead the firm.

Business Insider reported in mid-2023 that Pick was the Morgan Stanley executive most likely to be named the next CEO, citing his long tenure, his record of results in the trading business, and his broad operating responsibilities. Fortune similarly profiled him as the frontrunner, noting his more than three decades of experience at the firm and his deep institutional knowledge.

On October 25, 2023, Morgan Stanley's board of directors announced that Pick had been selected as the firm's next chief executive officer, effective January 1, 2024. The announcement came as Gorman, who had led Morgan Stanley since 2010 and overseen a significant strategic pivot toward wealth management, prepared to step down from the top role.

Reuters described Pick as "straight-talking" in its profile of the incoming CEO, noting his direct communication style and his deep roots in the firm's trading culture. The Financial Times also profiled Pick ahead of his assumption of the CEO role, examining his background as a trader and the strategic challenges he would face in leading a firm that had expanded beyond its investment banking roots into wealth and asset management.

A Belgian financial publication, L'Echo, described Pick as "l'ex-trader devenu nouveau patron de Morgan Stanley" (the former trader who became the new boss of Morgan Stanley), emphasizing the unusual trajectory of a career trader ascending to the top of a diversified financial services firm.

CEO and Chairman of Morgan Stanley

Pick officially became CEO of Morgan Stanley on January 1, 2024. In January 2025, he additionally assumed the role of chairman of the board, consolidating the firm's top two leadership positions.

In his first full year as CEO, Pick presided over what Morgan Stanley described as a record year for the firm. Bloomberg News reported that the strong financial results led to a significant increase in Pick's compensation. Under his leadership, the firm's market value reached approximately $223 billion, and its share price appreciated significantly.

In January 2026, Pick expressed an optimistic outlook on the mergers and acquisitions landscape, stating that the dealmaking environment was "thriving" and that companies were in "excellent" health. Bloomberg News reported that he described himself as "pretty amped up" about the M&A landscape.

An analysis published by Eurasia Review in January 2026 characterized Pick's leadership approach as "unconventional" by Wall Street standards, noting a series of strategic moves that departed from the industry's typical tendency to follow prevailing trends.

Compensation

For his first year as CEO in 2024, Pick received total compensation of $34 million.

In February 2026, Morgan Stanley announced that it had approved total compensation of $45 million for Pick for the year 2025, representing a 32 percent increase from his 2024 pay package. The increase was attributed to the firm's record financial performance during 2025 under Pick's leadership.

Banking Dive noted that Pick's $45 million compensation package added to evidence that $40 million was emerging as a benchmark for annual compensation among the CEOs of the largest American banks, placing Pick's pay alongside packages received by the leaders of firms such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Personal Life

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

Pick has maintained a relatively low public profile outside of his professional role. Reuters, in its profile of Pick ahead of his assumption of the CEO position, described him as direct and straightforward in his communication style, characteristics that colleagues and associates noted as consistent across both his personal and professional interactions.

He has resided in the New York City metropolitan area throughout his career at Morgan Stanley, consistent with the firm's headquarters location in Midtown Manhattan.

Recognition

Pick's selection as CEO of Morgan Stanley was itself a significant marker of his standing within the global financial services industry, placing him at the helm of one of the six largest banks in the United States. His appointment was covered extensively by major financial publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Fortune, Bloomberg News, and Reuters, reflecting the significance of the leadership transition at a firm of Morgan Stanley's size and influence.

Bloomberg News's 2021 profile described Pick as a "trading savior" at Morgan Stanley, recognizing his role in rebuilding and expanding the firm's equities franchise over a period of more than a decade. The Wall Street Journal's characterization of him as "a math whiz among math whizzes" highlighted his analytical reputation within an industry that places a premium on quantitative skill.

The Eurasia Review analysis in January 2026 characterized Pick as "Wall Street's maverick," suggesting that his leadership approach had distinguished him from other major bank CEOs through its willingness to pursue strategies that deviated from industry consensus.

His 2025 compensation of $45 million placed him among the highest-paid executives in the American banking industry, a measure that, while not an award in the traditional sense, reflected the Morgan Stanley board's assessment of his performance and the firm's results under his leadership.

Legacy

As of early 2026, Pick's tenure as CEO of Morgan Stanley remains in its early stages, and a comprehensive assessment of his legacy is premature. However, several elements of his career trajectory and early leadership have drawn attention from financial analysts and media commentators.

Pick's ascent from the trading floor to the CEO's office represented a notable shift in the type of executive chosen to lead Morgan Stanley. His predecessor, James Gorman, was a former McKinsey & Company consultant who had been brought in to lead the firm's wealth management division. Pick, by contrast, was a career trader who had spent his entire professional life within Morgan Stanley's institutional securities business. This transition raised questions about whether the firm's strategic direction would shift under a leader whose expertise lay in trading and investment banking rather than wealth management.

The record financial results Morgan Stanley achieved during Pick's first full year as CEO, and the resulting increase in his compensation, suggested that his early leadership was viewed favorably by the firm's board and shareholders. His expressed optimism about the M&A landscape in early 2026 signaled a continued emphasis on the firm's investment banking capabilities alongside its wealth management business.

Pick's career also illustrates the enduring significance of long institutional tenure in Wall Street succession. His more than 30 years at Morgan Stanley before becoming CEO reflected a model of leadership development in which deep institutional knowledge and long-standing relationships within a firm were valued alongside external experience.