Bank of America revamps leadership ranks with eye on succession race

Bank of America named Dean Athanasia and Jim DeMare as co-presidents reporting to CEO Brian Moynihan, while Alastair Borthwick adds executive VP title to his CFO role

By Sridhar Natarajan and Katherine Doherty

 

Bank of America Corp. is shaking up its senior ranks with moves that narrow the slate of leaders who could one day succeed long-time Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan. 

The company named Dean Athanasia and Jim DeMare co-presidents, reporting to Moynihan directly, according to a statement Friday. Alastair Borthwick will continue as chief financial officer while adding the title of executive vice president. 

 

“Athanasia and DeMare will drive companywide initiatives focused on long-term growth and returns and oversee Bank of America’s eight lines of business and their leaders, who remain unchanged,” the firm said in the statement. 

 

Moynihan, already one of the longest tenured CEOs of a big US bank, has said he wants to continue in the role through the end of the decade. 

 

“I look forward to working with our leaders and 213,000 teammates as together we drive responsible growth through its second decade,” Moynihan, 65, said in the statement.

 

After being elevated to the top job in 2010, Moynihan helped guide the firm through the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. But 15 years later, he had not made a move toward publicly identifying likely candidates to succeed him as the bank’s shares have languished.

 

The stock has trailed all of its major peers over the past year and has been the worst performer among the six biggest US banks since the Federal Reserve began its rate-hike cycle in early 2022. The shares have returned 34 per cent in that span, while all of its main rivals delivered at least 78 per cent.

 

The last major shake-up in the bank’s senior ranks left a key role vacant since the departure of then-Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag, who later joined the board of his former employer, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 

In that same shake-up of the senior ranks in 2021, which included changes to the management committee, Borthwick was elevated to CFO. Athanasia added responsibility for the commercial bank to his role at the time of overseeing the consumer and small-business banking operation.

 

Montag also had oversight of the entire investment bank in addition to his role as COO. Since then, those responsibilities have been divvied up among executives including Matthew Koder, who runs the dealmaking business.

 

The firm has been handing DeMare, 56, additional responsibilities, putting him in charge of the bank’s research operations in December, in addition to his role as head of the markets division. Bloomberg reported earlier Friday that the bank was planning moves that would involve elevating him. 

 

Athanasia, 59, is already seen as one of the most senior leaders at the firm, in charge of four of Bank of America’s eight business lines, including retail banking, preferred and small-business banking, and global commercial banking. 

 

The company plans to host an investor day in November, its first in many years. Borthwick, 57, explained the motivation after the long gap at a conference earlier this week.

 

“The most important thing from our perspective is we feel like we’ve got an opportunity to close a relative-value gap,” Borthwick said. “We’re not entirely satisfied as a management team with where we stand right now on relative value. We feel like we’ve got a lot of growth opportunities across the various lines of business.”