When Wall Street investment banking ruled the world, she was one of its queens and was paid accordingly. Bob Diamond must have dreamed a million times of hiring her when he ran Barclays.
But that was then. Now, two CEOs on, such a hire would be received with incredulity by regulators, politicians and investors. Even Barclays’ investment bankers might squirm a little.
Staley is right to want to reverse Antony Jenkins’s antipathy to investment banking, but his idea of hiring someone so associated with the sins of the past brings his instincts into question.
Furthermore, I wonder how Tom King, the current investment banking head she would have replaced, is feeling today.
