James F. Walker
Managing Director: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
Jim Walker is the Director of the Consulting Group (CG) at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. The Consulting Group represents all the Advisory and Fee Based businesses at MSSB. CG is responsible for platform management and development, sales, professional education, product support and portfolio construction. CG has professionals based in Purchase, New York and Wilmington, Delaware.
With over $500 billion in client assets, the Consulting Group (CG) is the industry leader in managed and advisory programs. It also leads in several of the fastest growing managed account categories, including rep as portfolio manager and Unified Managed Accounts. (Source: Cerulli Associates 4Q 2011).
The Consulting Group includes the Global Investment Solutions (GIS) asset management unit. GIS manages equity and fixed income assets in separate account and multi-asset class mandates for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. GIS has professional staff in London, New York and Chicago.
Graystone Consulting - MSSB's institutional consulting arm - is also part of Consulting Group. Graystone provides consulting services to institutional clients in the pension, endowment, foundation and retirement plan markets.
Mr. Walker previously served at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney as Chief Operating Officer of Investment Strategy and Client Solutions, with responsibilities for strategy, coordination and overall business leadership. The businesses in ISCS provide products, platforms, source third party investment products and managers, and create research content for MSSB’s Financial Advisors in both the U.S. and globally..
Prior to this position, he was the Director of Finance, Risk, and Strategy for Global Wealth Management Investments at Citi. He joined Citi in November of 2006 as the Chief Operating Officer of Investment Advisory Services.
Prior to joining Citi, Jim spent 20 years with Merrill Lynch where he served in a number of field and home office roles. In his last position at Merrill Lynch, he was the Chief Administrative Officer Americas for Merrill’s Global Private Client business.
Before serving as CAO, Jim held several field leadership positions at Merrill Lynch: Wellesley, Massachusetts, Norfolk, Virginia and Indianapolis, Indiana. He began his career in 1985 as a Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia.
Jim has a B.A. in Economics from the Catholic University of America and was a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a S.M. in Management Science. Jim continues as a lecturer at M.I.T. at the Sloan school. He holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) designation.