Missing Dimon
Ruth Breech misses Jamie Dimon. For years, the senior campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network has pressed JPMorgan and other banks to stop funding the fossil-fuel industry, often protesting executives in person with chants and banners.
“Sharing the same physical space with somebody, especially with one of the most powerful men in world, and to let them know that you have access to them, is huge,” she said. This March, she painted a banner again for an upcoming protest against two banks in Cincinnati.
Rachel Robasciotti, who runs asset manager Adasina Social Capital, hopes that Wall Street keeps some of its recent cultural shifts.
“What’s gone that I won’t miss are the conferences where people drink a little too much and come into your personal space in ways that aren’t necessarily appropriate,” she said. She learned how to lift hands from her shoulder and waist at hotel bars, “but it’s pretty nice not having to constantly reinforce it.”
She wants to make her own permanent changes, too.
“I’m not flying across the country for lunch anymore,” she said. “Unless there’s a clear, demonstrable reason, I’m not getting on a plane for a meeting for a couple of hours.”
‘Pathetic Replacement’
Bill Daley, vice chairman of public affairs at Wells Fargo & Co., pines for old workday rituals. “I like being in a conference room with a bunch of people talking about whatever the issue is, as opposed to looking at little squares of peoples’ faces, trying to see if they’re smiling, laughing or ignoring you,” he said. “I’ve been participating in Zoom happy hours, Zoom cheese and wine, and it’s a pathetic replacement.”
He also wants to reestablish the line between life and work. “At least when you left the office in the evening, even though you still had your emails come in, you went home. The day was over.” Daley, who was chief of staff to President Barack Obama, never used to walk around with his phone at home. “Now I find myself carrying it with me, and I regret that. It’s ridiculous.”
Ioannis Ioannou, who teaches strategy at London Business School, wants the pandemic to force the finance industry to rethink other crises.
‘A Pause’
“Climate change, the loss of biodiversity, social inequality and poverty, all of these are challenges that we are already facing, and evidently we are not sufficiently prepared for them,” said Ioannou, who advises asset manager DWS Group on sustainability. “It’s about the broader role that finance and banking can play in terms of allocating the world’s limited financial capital towards projects, companies and initiatives that will give us a fighting chance.”
Lauren Simmons, who became the youngest full-time female trader at the New York Stock Exchange in 2017 and has since left to become an entrepreneur, isn’t expecting Wall Street’s shifts to last.
“I think it’s more of a pause,” she said. “Unless leadership changes and the mentality of your leadership in your organization changes, then it pretty much goes back to status quo as soon as they get the OK.
—With assistance from Lananh Nguyen and David Scheer.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.