Launched in 2006, Global Volunteer Month serves as our annual corporate volunteer program that brings employees together to demonstrate our deep and long-standing commitment to serving those in need. In total, our employees have provided nearly 2.4 million hours to various local and international charities—just during this one month each year. "The world faces more challenges and change than ever, resulting in urgent and far-reaching needs across communities globally — but our commitment to give back has never wavered,” says Joan Steinberg, Global Head of Philanthropy and President of the Morgan Stanley Foundation. Many employees have already made a difference both in and out of our own communities during Global Volunteer Month and throughout the year, making volunteering an opportunity for teams to get together and make an impact across the globe. Learn more about how Morgan Stanley gives back.
“Lead With Exceptional Ideas” is one of our five core values, so it should come as no surprise that for the second year in a row, the number of patents granted to Morgan Stanley employees has doubled. In fact, an in-house Patent Accelerator Program was established to support our employees who seek to turn their innovative ideas into patents. Some examples of recent patents awarded to Morgan Stanley teams include: SolarPanel, which helps financial institutions develop strategies for managing their exposure to carbon emissions and eAuth, a digital tool that allows quick authorization of financial transactions designed by a Wealth Management team working across several divisions. Read more about the breadth of innovation and technological advancement happening at Morgan Stanley.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an important time to reflect on how to better prioritize mental health as the world grapples with a growing crisis since the start of the pandemic. Through the Morgan Stanley Foundation, we seek to address these issues with the help of our distinguished nonprofit partner organizations and initiatives, such as the Alliance of Children’s Mental Health, which is focused on delivering positive, tangible impact on the critical challenges of stress, anxiety and depression in children and youth. “As mental health challenges among children and adolescents are rapidly becoming more pervasive and more urgent, we firmly believe there is not only an opportunity, but an obligation for the private sector to play a critical role in addressing the problem.” shared Joan Steinberg, President of the Morgan Stanley Foundation. Read about the important work of the Alliance and additional mental health offerings available to Morgan Stanley employees and their families.
In honor of Earth Day, Morgan Stanley is proud to reaffirm its commitment to supporting companies and investors who seek to harness the scale of capital markets to help combat climate change while performing well financially and driving sustainability innovation. One such hotbed for innovation is the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge. Now in its 12th year, the Challenge brings together graduate school teams to pitch creative financial solutions that address critical environmental and social issues. This year saw 251 students from 35 countries submit proposals for projects that would impact issues in 29 countries. Of the 16 finalist teams, the graduate students from University of Cambridge took home the winning title with a concept to create a new type of parametric insurance to protect and restore mangrove forests. Congratulations to the winners and to all the innovative finalists! Learn more about the annual Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge and other emerging insights on sustainability investing at Morgan Stanley.
Congratulations to the Morgan Stanley MAKERS Class of 2022 -- an esteemed group of employees who serve as innovators, groundbreakers, and advocates for women’s advancement in our firm and their communities. In 2014, the firm partnered with the MAKERS storytelling platform to name in-house leaders as MAKERS, and has since contributed to the initiative by celebrating, acknowledging and connecting leading employees to the larger MAKERS network. Learn more about the 9th Morgan Stanley MAKERS Class:
We extend our congratulations to Mona Eldam, Distinguished Engineer and Head of Institutional Transactional Data, for winning the Women in Tech and Data ‘Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement’ award from WatersTechnology. This well-deserved recognition is a testament to her outstanding career in engineering and her deep commitment to championing professional growth for Women In Technology—at Morgan Stanley and beyond. Learn more about Mona’s career in technology at Morgan Stanley:
To kick off Black History Month at Morgan Stanley, our Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Susan Reid, appeared on Bloomberg Television to share the firm’s efforts to create a more diverse workforce and more broadly, the need to recruit for greater diversity in corporate America. Susan candidly said, “We have made progress, but it is clear we have more to do,” noting that removing barriers to entry and creating greater access to opportunities will drive further impact. She spoke to the firm’s $20 million commitment to advancing education and career opportunities for 30,000+ low-to-moderate income, ethnically diverse students globally through the Equity in Education and Career Consortium. Susan also highlighted the impact of the Morgan Stanley HBCU Scholars program, which supports students at the top 3 HBCUs with full four-year scholarships and mentorships through colleagues at the firm. Watch Susan’s full interview with Bloomberg.
Investors are seeing new opportunities in the technology sector. “Think of the metaverse as a digital realm of the future, like the next evolution of the internet. Fully developed, it could one day allow people to interact, work and play in immersive virtual spaces. And as major technology players embrace the idea—and, in some cases, peg the future of their business on it—it’s also creating opportunities for investors, namely in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR),” says Vijay Chandar, Investment Strategist, Wealth Management. Read on for more insights about the unique investment opportunities related to AR/VR for both today and tomorrow.
New Year, new branding. Introducing E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley, the same dynamic and pioneering online client platform with a fresh look. This marks an exciting expansion for Wealth Management as it increases clients and consumers’ access to the innate technology and comprehensive suite of investment and retirement savings opportunities available on the elevated E*TRADE by Morgan Stanley platform. Joining capabilities across our business opens access to even more opportunities for those interested in careers in Technology and Wealth Management.
Last week, Morgan Stanley and the Child Mind Institute announced the results of the “Machine Learning for Good” Hackathon. Nearly 150 Morgan Stanley developers competed in this inspiring event in teams across 19 offices. Together, they applied their machine learning expertise to build models for analyzing Coronavirus health and impact data covering key topics related to mental health challenges and resilience during the pandemic. We are proud of our employees who participated in the Hackathon and leveraged their technical expertise to give back to this important cause. The winning solution will be custom built into a fully-fledged analysis tool by Morgan Stanley experts through the firm’s Tech Change Makers pro bono program and remain open source to encourage continuous collaboration.