The PAM 50 Most Influential is an annual list of those at the forefront of shaping private client wealth management in the UK and Crown Dependencies.
Today we hear from Michael Morley, chief executive of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management's UK Bank, who joined Deutsche in 2017 after seven years as chief executive of Coutts.
Under Mr Morley’s leadership Deutsche has reorganised its UK operation, installing a new operating platform and hiring an increasingly senior group of relationship managers and wealth management leaders from, inter alia: Coutts, Credit Suisse and UBS.
An alumnus of Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Coutts, where he held both UK and international leadership roles, he has a degree in modern and mediaeval languages from Cambridge University and sits on the China Advisory Council of the Judge Business School.
What team or personal achievement over the past year are you most proud of?
It has to be the way everyone pulled together to run a complex client organisation entirely from home and continued to operate as one team throughout this period.
Continuing to serve our clients and to build out the senior leadership team in 2020 with a number of significant hires was a testament to getting everyone to imagine a completely different operating model and working together to execute it. It forced us all to rethink everything and stretched our creative muscles every day.
What do you find most rewarding about your role?
It’s the opportunity to meet a range of diverse clients, to understand their needs and then to have influence in shaping our organisation’s approach to helping them.
And it's the opportunity to work with expert professionals across the wealth and investment banking space, sometimes to guide them and more often to be guided by them!
What most excites or interests you about the wealth management industry right now?
It’s that I am lucky enough to have a seat at the table of an industry that is coming to terms with the next iteration of the digital revolution and starting to co-create new businesses with those who understand the application of data science to business.
I am sure that many of the next generation of wealth management chief executives are more likely to have degrees in knowledge engineering and data science than modern languages and I think this is an exciting and challenging prospect.
Who do you look to for inspiration or mentorship?
I sit on the boards of Walpole British Luxury and also the Centre for Mental Health and it's always interesting to see how the challenges that other organisations have can sometimes have read-across into the day job. This is a source of inspiration and energy.
And the next generation who are starting their own wealth management journey are a constant source of constructive challenge and mentorship.
What luxury item would you want with you on a desert island?
Definitely a piano. Preferably a concert grand with matching cocktail cabinet.
Was there a particularly guilty pleasure which helped you through lockdown?
Channelling my inner Mary Berry and learning how to make scones properly was helpful. It certainly improved my street credibility with the family.
If you couldn’t work in wealth management/private banking, what other career appeals?
Working with Walpole has enabled me to get a good look at the world of British Luxury companies, so I could definitely see myself enjoying running one of these and applying some of the private banking tools of the trade.
What’s a cheesy pop song that you love?
I am a lifelong Burt Bacharach fan so it would have to be Dionne Warwick and 'What do you get when you fall in love?'. A classic and on my desert island discs list!
