The Crash Of Zoe Cruz

NY Mag has a long article on the career of Morgan Stanley’s Zoe Cruz. At one point, it looked as if she would be Wall Street’s first female CEO. But she was fired in November. Here’s a sample:

If that meeting in Mack’s office had been the meeting she was hoping for, Cruz would have made history: No woman has ever been CEO of a Wall Street firm. Now it looks like that won’t change for a very long time—there are no other high-ranking women in serious contention for a top job. If women across Wall Street viewed Cruz’s firing as a blow, there were men at Morgan Stanley who seemed almost gleeful about it. The woman they had nicknamed the “Czarina,” the “Wicked Witch,” and, most famously, “Cruz Missile” was out of the picture. They joked that it was worth the $9 billion loss to have her gone. In her rise through the company, Cruz had become not just one of the most powerful women on Wall Street but also the most loathed. It’s a matter of opinion whether those two things are inextricably linked, but for Cruz the same qualities that propelled her almost to the top also prevented her from reaching it.

Posted by on April 28th, 2008 at 12:06 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.