Merrill Lynch’s Globally Thought Chief David H. Komansky dies aged 82


Many executives hired or mentored by Mr. Komansky, among them Mr. Gorman, as well as Laurence D. Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, all the way to the top echelons of Wall Street. followed him; and Andy Sieg, who heads the wealth management division of Bank of America.

Mr. Komansky, former Treasury secretary and chairman of Goldman Sachs, Henry M. Paulson Jr. He even became friends with his rivals, including The two joked about traveling the world to meet clients, sometimes landing in cities within days.

“He was a very tough competitor that I still consider my friend,” Mr. Paulson said in an interview. “Human skills were legendary.”

David Herman Komansky was born on April 27, 1939, in Mount Vernon, NY. His father, William, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, worked as a postal worker at night. His mother, Mae, came from an Irish-Catholic family and later converted to Judaism. Mr. Komansky reminded his desk of his humble roots: a photograph of the rental building in the Grand Concourse in which he grew up.

He took an unconventional route to get to the top. After leaving the University of Miami, Mr. Komansky served in the Coast Guard and did odd jobs before working for a local brokerage firm in New York.

He was hired by Merrill as a financial advisor intern at Queens in 1968 and began climbing the ranks, selling in Detroit and New York and then nationwide for Merrill’s private client group.

After completing a management program at Harvard University, Mr. Komansky was promoted by then-CEO Daniel P. Tully to manage the capital markets business, including equities and debt. He became president and director of operations in January 1995 and general manager in December 1996. He was elected president the following spring.



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