BofA narrows list for CEO post: Report

The race to succeed Kenneth Lewis as the Bank of America Corp chief executive has narrowed to two internal candidates, though the board is still looking for a new face for the USA’s largest bank by assets, says a media report.

The internal candidates are Bank of America Chief Risk Officer Gregory Curl and Brian Moynihan, the Charlotte, NC, bank’s consumer and small-business banking chief, The Wall Street Journal said attributing to people familiar with the situation. A board search committee formed last week is also expected to sift through external candidates, and other names could enter the process depending on input from other Bank of America directors.

Among financial-services executives not at Bank of America, those discussed by the board include Gregory Fleming, former president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch & Co and a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale Law School, the report said citing people aware of the matter.

The search committee is expected to meet for the first time later this week, followed by a meeting of the full board on Friday. The report noted that if the 61-year-old Curl is named the CEO, he would keep the job for no more than two years.