Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, BofA & Citi ramped up US MD hiring last year
2025 was a big year for US bank hiring. It was also a big year for US bank exits.
A new report says top US banks doubled their managing director (MD) hiring last year. This might discourage hiring in 2026, but for the fact many existing MDs also moved on.
The chart above is based on data from search firm Sheffield Haworth. It has not been validated by the banks concerned.
Sheffield Haworth estimates that Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, RBC and UBS each either doubled or more than doubled their hiring of external investment banking MDs in 2025 versus 2024. JPMorgan, Citi and Barclays also increased hiring dramatically during the period.
However, while MDs came in one door, they went out another. One bank is estimated to have ended the year down 23 US MDs and Citi - which hired heavily in 2024 - is estimated to have ended the year down eight.
The figures in the chart do not reflect MDs created by internal promotions.
By Sheffield Haworth's reckoning, last year's biggest US MD hirer was Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo ended 2025 with 21 more MDs than it began, not counting internal promotions.
Fernando Rivas, head of Wells Fargo's corporate and investment bank, told the FT earlier this month that the bank intends to add 25-30 new managing directors (MDs) in 2026, and then again in 2027, following on from the 125 investment bank MDs it's hired since 2019.
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