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Interview with Ruth Porat

December 15, 2013
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Ruth Porat

Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Morgan Stanley

Biography


Ruth Porat has been Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley since January 2010. She previously served as Vice Chairman of Investment Banking from September 2003 to December 2009 and Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group from September 2006 through December 2009. Throughout the financial crisis, Ruth was responsible for the Firm's coverage of financial institutions and governments globally. She led the Morgan Stanley teams retained to advise the U.S. Treasury regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the New York Federal Reserve Bank with respect to AIG. She serves on the Operating and Management Committees.

Ruth began her career with Morgan Stanley in 1987 in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department. Since then, she helped establish the Firm’s corporate finance effort covering Financial Sponsors, led the Equity Capital Markets technology business and served as Co-Head of the Global Technology Investment Banking Group from 1996 through 2000. Later, she relocated to London where she focused on technology and media clients and the Firm’s European private equity investing business.

Ruth received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School (with Distinction), an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and a B.A. from Stanford University. Prior to Business School, she spent two years at Price Waterhouse.

Ruth is a member of the U.S. Treasury’s Borrowing Advisory Committee. She is Vice Chair of Stanford University’s Board of Trustees and serves on Stanford’s Council of the School of Humanities and Sciences. She is a Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Economic Club of New York and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution and on the Bretton Woods Committee, and was formerly on the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ruth lives in Manhattan with her husband and three sons.