New CEO for Bank of America

Brian Moynihan will replace Ken Lewis as chief executive of Bank of America on January 1.

Moynihan, who is currently president of consumer and small-business banking, was elected to the top role by the bank's board yesterday.

The Charlotte-based firm has been on the lookout for a successor to Lewis since September, when he announced his resignation effective December 31 after eight years at the helm of the bank.

In August, the bank implemented a series of changes to its executive management committee with the intention of positioning a number of senior executives to compete to succeed Lewis.

As part of the reshuffle, Moynihan took over consumer banking responsibilities; Tom Montag, head of global markets, took over corporate and investment banking; and Sallie Krawcheck, former chief executive of global wealth management at Citigroup, joined the bank as head of global wealth and investment management. Gregory Curl, who was appointed chief risk officer in June, was also rumoured to be a strong candidate to replace Lewis.

External candidates were also considered for the role, but Moynihan was deemed the best person for the job because of his relationships inside and outside of the company and his experience across the bank's different business lines, including wealth management, corporate and investment banking, consumer banking and capital markets.

"The board decided after listening to shareholders, regulators and others that Brian's experience was commensurate with or better than any of those [external] candidates, and he offered the advantage of a smooth transition," said the bank's chairman Walter Massey.

Moynihan joined FleetBoston Financial (a predecessor to Bank of America) in 1993, where he was head of corporate strategy and development, and head of global wealth and investment management. He joined Bank of America in 2004 as president of global wealth and investment management after the merger of the two firms. Between 2007 and August this year, he was president of global corporate and investment banking.

Ken Lewis has been chief executive since 2001. Under his leadership, Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and Countrywide in January and July 2008 respectively, underwent the US government's stress tests (which found the bank needed to increase Tier I common capital by $33.9 billion) and borrowed $45 billion from the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Lewis has been at the bank since 1969, joining North Carolina National Bank (predecessor to NationsBank and Bank of America) as a credit analyst.