Ex-Deutsche FIG banker reappears at US bank in more dominant job

3 December 2024

3 minute read

If you work in financial institutions group (FIG) banking, or you're a financials analyst, then an alternative life is waiting for you. You can always leave FIG or financials research and become a senior figure steering the trajectory of a major bank.

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Brian Weintraub, formerly a director in Deutsche Bank's FIG team, is the latest to make this transition. Weintraub spent nearly eight years in Deutsche Bank's FIG team. Then he became a partner at McKinsey & Co. Now he's joined Wells Fargo in New York as head of strategy and transformation for the corporate and investment bank.

Weintraub didn't respond to a request to comment for this article. He arrives at an interesting time. In May, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said the opportunity to expand the bank's advisory and underwriting capabilities was "staring us in the face" and talking about growing in "very, very targeted way." Scharf installed Jon Weiss as head of the investment bank in 2019 and then added co-head Fernando Rivas from JPMorgan in April 2024. Scharf also hired Doug Braunstein, JPMorgan's former CFO and head of Americas investment banking, in February '24. A team is in place.

Weintraub, who has a Harvard MBA, isn't the only former FIG banker or banks researcher to break out into a role setting the direction for a whole business. Andrea Orcel, Europe's FIG banker extraordinaire, now runs Unicredit and is threatening to unify the continent's banking system. Huw Van Steenis, Morgan Stanley's former global head of banks research, spent over two years as advisor to the CEO at UBS and now is a partner at consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Chirantan Barua, a former MD in banks research at Bernstein, became a McKinsey & Co. Partner before joining HSBC as global head of strategy. Barua is now CEO of Scottish Widows in the UK.

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