The chief of a publicly traded investment bank's $1.4-trillion-AUM asset manager is on the rise, shortly after making a big acquisition.

Daniel "Dan" Simkowitz Morgan Stanley Head of Investment Management

Yesterday, James Gorman, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, confirmed that Dan Simkowitz will add another hat soon. Simkowitz, a managing director who already serves as head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management (IM), will also become co-head of firm strategy and execution for all of Morgan Stanley.

Simkowitz will continue to report to Gorman and will share the strategy and execution leadership duties with Ted Pick, who will also become a co-president of Morgan Stanley. (Pick already leads the firm's institutional securities business.)

The promotions of Simkowitz and Pick were revealed alongside several other top-level appointments, including the appointment of another co-president, a COO, a CFO, and a vice chairman and external affairs chief. Altogether, news of the appointments has fueled much speculation about Gorman's possible successors down the line.

"The management appoints announced today reflect the next generation of leadership at Morgan Stanley," Gorman stated yesterday, before highlighting each of the rising executives.

"Dan Simkowitz has led the growth of our investment management business into an asset manager of scale through the recent of acquisition of Eaton Vance as well as strong organic growth built on excellent investment performance," Gorman stated about the Morgan Stanley IM chief. (The Eaton Vance acquisition closed not quite three months ago.)

Simkowitz has spent 31 years at Morgan Stanley, and he served as co-head of global capital markets before taking over asset management in 2015. Earlier on, he worked at Alex Brown. He is an alumnus of Columbia Business School and of Harvard University. 

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