Marc Granetz, who spent his entire 26-year career at Credit Suisse Group in various investment banking posts -- including chairman of global investment banking -- is tackling a broader strategic and operational assignment at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as head of its new global financial initiatives effort.

In what appears to be a somewhat amorphous role, Granetz is involved in companywide financial and strategic initiatives, entailing everything from helping to steer growth plans to maintaining regulatory capital levels to cost cutting to working out mortgage issues. Granetz, who joined in January, does not have a specific team working under him and will instead coordinate with different executives across the company, depending upon the lines of business and staff functions that are impacted by each of his respective projects.

"It's a complete break from what I was doing before," says Granetz, 55, adding that over the course of his career, he was focused on "the investment banking business, client coverage, M&A and capital markets transactions." Now, he says, "my client is the chief financial officer and the bank."

The CFO is Doug Braunstein, who attended Harvard Law School with Granetz and lured him to J.P. Morgan. "We both joined First Boston Corp. [now Credit Suisse] in the same week out of law school" in 1986, Granetz says. "We've talked over the years as friends and competitors."

Granetz spent his first three years at First Boston in its financial institutions group, where his inaugural assignment was working on the complex restructuring of diversified financial services company Beneficial Corp. under the tutelage of Bruce Wasserstein, also a Harvard Law alum. He then spent two years in the takeover defense team for Credit Suisse's M&A group; five years in the global oil and gas group, where he had been co-head; six years as an M&A generalist; and two years as head of global media and telecom. He wrapped up his Credit Suisse career splitting time between London and New York as co-head of global investment banking, global head of M&A and head of the "key client initiative" for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

While Granetz has worked on a plethora of deals over the years, he recounts a handful as particularly memorable. These include Chevron Corp.'s roughly $36 billion acquisition of Texaco Inc. in 2000, in which he advised the seller, and Dow Chemical Co.'s $11.6 billion acquisition of Union Carbide Corp. in 2001, in which he represented Union Carbide. Another notable assignment was his representation of General Electric Co.'s NBC network in its $14 billion purchase of Vivendi Universal SA's American entertainment assets in 2004.

Granetz says he was attracted to the challenge of the new J.P. Morgan position. "The industry is being fundamentally rethought and reconsidered around the world. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty -- there are regulatory developments, political developments and legal developments every day. It's interesting to be in an institution like J.P. Morgan and an industry while it's being redefined."

But does he miss dealmaking? "If you're a deal guy, you're always going to miss the deal, but I'm willing to make the tradeoff," he says.