Francis Barron

60, chief legal officer

One of the newest members of the executive team, Barron joined Morgan in September 2010 from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where he spent his entire 32-year legal career. The Harvard Law School grad replaced Gary Lynch, a longtime friend of Mack's, who is now Bank of America Corp.'s legal chief. Barron counseled Salomon Brothers in the early '90s when it was caught submitting false bids in Treasury bond auctions. He also advised Morgan Stanley's board when Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. took a stake in the firm after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Gregory Fleming

48, executive vice president and president of asset management

A former president and chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch, Fleming was hired by Gorman in early 2010 to revive its investment management unit. A year later, he added president of wealth management, gaining responsibility for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and its huge retail operation. At Merrill, Fleming, a longtime financial services dealmaker, is credited with helping engineer its sale to Bank of America. He left the firm shortly after for a brief stint as a senior research scholar and distinguished visiting fellow at his alma mater, Yale Law School.

Keishi Hotsuki

49, chief risk officer

Another thundering herd alum, Hotsuki joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 as head of market risk after serving in a similar role at Merrill. Hotsuki, who has a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University, began his career at Fuji Bank Ltd. in 1984 and moved to Bankers Trust in 1993, where he was eventually named head of market risk management. He joined Merrill in 1999 as head of risk management for Japan/Asia-Pacific.

Kenneth deRegt

55, global head of fixed-income sales and trading

Hotsuki's predecessor as chief risk officer, deRegt took over fixed income earlier this year as the firm outlined plans to boost market share in fixed-income trading by 2 percentage points. DeRegt first joined Morgan in 1981, held the top fixed-income post in the '90s, but left in 2000 when Phil Purcell was CEO. Mack hired him back to run risk management in 2008 after the firm recorded its first quarterly loss. In between, deRegt, a Stanford grad, spent six years at investment manager Aetos Capital LLC.

Paul Taubman

50, co-president of institutional securities

A longtime head of Morgan's investment bank, Taubman helped secure Mitsubishi's $9 billion investment in the firm after Lehman's collapse. He joined Morgan after receiving his bachelor's degree from Wharton in 1982 and returned after earning a Stanford M.B.A. in 1986. By 2003 Taubman was running global M&A and became co-head of investment banking four years later. He worked on a number of megadeals including advising Comcast Corp. on its $72 billion merger with AT&T Broadband in 2001 and with CVS Corp. on its $27 billion merger with Caremark Rx Inc. in 2007.

Ruth Porat

53, executive vice president and chief financial officer

Along with vice chairman Robert ­Scully, Porat is best known for helping the U.S. Treasury sort out problems at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in September 2008. She joined Morgan in 1987 after receiving her M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993 Porat followed Robert Greenhill to Smith Barney, but returned in 1996. She did a stint in equity capital markets, helping to take technology companies public, then spent four years in London. Porat returned to the U.S. as a vice chairman in 2003 and was named global head of financial institutions in 2006. She ascended to CFO in January 2010 when Gorman became CEO.

Colm Kelleher

54, co-president of institutional securities

Porat's predecessor as CFO, Kelleher was in that job during the 2008 financial crisis when the firm secretly borrowed $107 billion from the Federal Reserve. He was named head of sales and trading in January 2010, and now, along with Taubman and Fleming, is seen as a top candidate to take Gorman's president title when he drops it early next year. Born in Ireland, Kelleher earned a master's from Oxford University, joined Morgan Stanley in 1989 after a stint at Arthur Andersen, and became co-head of fixed income in Europe in 2004 and head of global capital markets in 2006.

Jim Rosenthal

58, chief operating officer

The former head of technology and operations, Rosenthal, who graduated from Harvard Law School, joined in 2008 from real estate developer Tishman Speyer, where he was chief financial officer. He was named head of corporate strategy in 2009 and COO earlier this year, replacing Mack confidant Tom Nides, who left to work for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rosenthal served as head of corporate strategy and development at Lehman Brothers Inc. from 1999 to 2005 following 13 years at McKinsey & Co., where Gorman cut his teeth.

Morgan Stanley's James Gorman