Women are the foot soldiers of the business world, but they are rarely the generals. So it’s worth asking why no female has been as successful in scaling Wall Street as Sallie Krawcheck, Bank of America’s (BAC) wealth management chief. While other women struggle to avoid the “glass cliff,” she barely walks into a bank before she is groomed as a future CEO.
Krawcheck is best known for the kind of media adoration you can’t buy—for instance, that famous cover story from Fortune magazine, “In Search of the Last Honest Analyst.” But her rise began well before—and was speedy. In six years Krawcheck went from junior banker at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette to chief executive of research firm Alliance Bernstein. She clocked just two years at Citigroup (C) before becoming CFO in 2004. Nine months after a falling-out with Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in 2008, she was back in the game with a better deal: Bank of America wooed Krawcheck, just 45, to run its mammoth brokerage. And within six weeks on the job, she was named as a possible successor for its departing CEO. But as successful as she has been in winning over the media, interviews with former colleagues show Krawcheck has been just as effective in winning over her peers, too. Her rise has not been flawless and is still not assured after her troubled turn as Citi CFO. But it is very real.
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It has been exactly nine months since the S&P 500 bottomed on March 9th at 676.53. Since then, the index has rallied 62%. Below we provide a chart of the rolling 9-month change (%) for the S&P 500 going back to 1928. As shown, 1933 was the only other time when the S&P 500 had a bigger 9-month gain. The 9-month period ending on May 12th, 1983 is the next best behind the current one with a gain of 60%. Also, the 9-month 62% gain was preceded by a 9-month decline of 51%. The only time that the index fell more over a 9-month period was in 1931/32 when it dropped 68%. It’s easy to forget how crazy things were over the last 18 months, but stats like these provide a staggering refresher.